Beware the Batman
by MJTR
Summary: Years after the death of The Dark Knight, a terror both new and familiar finally makes its way to Gotham City. Everyone, innocent, guilty, old foes and old students, will be made to Beware the Batman.
1. Chapter 1

[[Author's intro, as has become customary:

The title of this story has nothing to do with the animated series of the same name. It is a reference to the expression, _Beware the Superman_. I've had something like this stewing in the back of my mind for a while, but only just recently hit the inspiration I was looking for to write it.

This story is set in the same continuity as _Angel of the Bat_ , but that story shouldn't be necessary reading to understand this one. I think those who aren't familiar with that one can put the pieces together. Whether this is definitively _the_ universe I'm using to follow Angel or just _a_ universe I don't know yet.

Batman and company are the property of DC Comics. This is a strictly fan-made storyline.]]

Beware the Batman

…

The call had been made just after four in the morning, the Gotham Police Commissioner just ready to hang up the badge for the night. It was an unpleasant surprise. Of course calls still came in at that horrible hour, but at least they didn't come with the same frequency that they used to. A call out to the slums used to be a regular experience. Now it was uncommon enough to be a little surprising as well as annoying.

The commissioner sent Bullock to the scene, hoping to avoid the unpleasantries, at least for the night. There would be paperwork, of course, and crime wasn't going to stop while the commissioner was asleep. But enough was enough for the night. It was time to get home, lay next to the wife for twenty minutes before she left for her job.

It was about twenty-five minutes later when the radio flickered to life. "Uh… Commish? You still in the car?"

"What is it Bullock?"

"This… I don't know how to tell you this… Uh… That thing we don't talk about anymore? That thing we haven't talked about since Gordon left? That thing."

Commissioner Maggie Sawyer brought the car to a screeching halt on the street two blocks from her apartment, eliciting a few honks and yells from the handful of drivers still on the streets. "You're sure?"

"It's in blood, Mrs. Sawyer. There's three bodies here, two of them had their necks snapped, looks like the third had it cut. I'm still investigating, but I'm pretty sure the one who got slashed was carrying some crack."

"Wait there Bullock, I'll be over as fast as I can be." Sawyer sighed as she set the radio down, looking longingly in the direction of her apartment. "Sorry Toby, looks like I've got some more work to do."

…

Commissioner Sawyer parked the car just outside the apartment on Brubaker and 22nd. Officer Bullock nervously reviewed the scene over and over with his eyes and notebook as Sawyer made her way over. "Thank God you're here," Bullock said. "Permission to take a smoke, ma'am?"

"Granted," Sawyer said with a nod. Bullock pulled off his wet rubber gloves, walking across the street and fumbling through his coat for a cigarette. "The guy who discovered the bodies is just inside, room 24."

Sawyer proceeded into the dark alleyway, the faintest showing of daylight just coming up over the horizon. One hand kept ahold of her flashlight, the other her pistol. "Is anyone in there?" She asked, slowly proceeding. "Maggie Sawyer, Commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department. If you're there I'd advise you put your hands up, I have some questions for you."

The only response Sawyer got was from a handful of rats scurrying as she walked past a row of trash cans. A few more feet and the light fell upon a limp foot, thereafter revealing the dead body it was attached to. The years had not made Sawyer jaded to the sight of death laying in her streets, and as she continued she saw the other two, she could feel a sickness building in her stomach. The latter two corpses were young, the youngest probably just around fourteen. The oldest one, a fat, balding white man, laid in a pool of his own blood. But within moments, swallowing hard, Sawyer turned her flashlight towards the wall.

Wordlessly, Sawyer pulled her cell phone from her pocket and punched in a number. The number wasn't kept readily available to the men and women on the squad, but she could recite it by heart.

…

Across the city, in a large high rise apartment a cell phone on the bedside table began to ring. The two sleeping next to it both clutched their blankets and each let out their own groans.

"I'm not answering it," the woman said. "I don't care who it is. They can wait."

"It's your phone," her husband said, still half-asleep. "You get it."

The two got a few seconds of bickering in before their bedroom door was opened, an annoyed red haired girl glaring at them as she crossed the room.

"I'll get it then!" She yelled towards her groaning parents. She grabbed ahold of her mother's phone and was about to answer it when it was snatched out of her hand.

Her equally red-headed mother sighed and gave her a look. "Go back to bed, Sarah." She told her, the little girl standing still a little longer, still glaring at her mother before she repeated, "Go." And she cooperated. With that, she raised the phone to her ear. "Who is it?"

"O, is that you?"

She sighed. "Yes commissioner, it's me. Any reason this couldn't wait until morning?"

"Babs, is that Sawyer?" Her dark haired husband asked, pushing up and letting out a yawn. "What's she doing calling us at this hour?"

"We have a situation out here."

"Yeah, I figured as much," Barbara said with a stretch. "Dic- Sorry, N wants to know what you're calling about."

"There's someone out there. Right this minute. Three people were just found dead, two of them teenagers."

"Okay… But… Sawyer what does that-"

"He left a calling card," Sawyer said. "He drew it in their fresh blood. Whoever this freak is, he's got a thing for bats."


	2. Chapter 2

Barbara spent that morning tirelessly punching in passwords and reinstating firewalls, her husband retrieving her more coffee whenever her mug ran out. "I hate these early morning shifts," Dick said, leaning over her shoulder.

"Did you see Sarah get on her bus?" Barbara asked, ignoring his statement.

"Yeah, she's fine." How much more do you have to do?"

"I've cracked most of it already." Barbara said, sipping her coffee. "Believe me, if I could just have these things under normal lock and key like in the old days, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But without all of Bruce's tech, security's been too hit and miss to risk."

"I thought we were supposed to be retired." Dick said, laying a hand on Barbara's shoulder. "I thought that throwing out the outfits was our way of saying we just couldn't do it. Or that we were ready to move on with our lives. Or something."

"Well, they don't call us too often. God willing we'll be able to just get this taken care of and get back to our lives," Barbara said, completing the last of the demands for a password across the previous three hours.

"You're an atheist, Babs," Dick said.

"If God is a good guy he's going to help me anyway," Barbara said, taking in the satisfaction of the lime-green color overtaking her computer screen.

Ten years ago, a deal had been struck. A deal that formally brought an end to the group fittingly known as "The Bat Family." With the new commissioner came new decisions and new unrest. Maybe if Bruce had been with them the negotiations would have turned out entirely differently. Surely, he never would have surrendered.

But Bruce wasn't there. Dick and Barbara were the eldest representatives, and by then they had a family to think about. In exchange for their costumes and identities, the Gotham City Police Department had sworn them a pension and protection… Provided when the need arose, they volunteer their expertise.

The family was not unanimous in this decision. Angry, embittered words were said that day. It was considered to be one of the key reasons Damion had travelled far out of state to attend college, and kept only rare contact with his father's allies.

"Speaking of which, you suppose we should tell the others?" Dick asked, stepping away from her shoulder and into the living room.

"How is that a 'speaking of which'?" Barbara asked.

"I don't know. Just saw Sarah hadn't put this away yet," Dick said, holding up a colorful card reading 'Happy Birthday Miss 6!' "Cassie signs everything, 'God bless', I guess was the best connection I can come up with."

"Cassie wouldn't want to know about this," Barbara said, returning her attention to the screen. "It'd just be undue stress. Then Sadie starts asking what's going on and she's dealing with that too, it's not worth it."

"Sadie knows who we are you know," Dick replied. "I was only surprised the first time she called me 'Robin', even if she was running a little late."

"This is probably just some punk amateur anyway," Barbara said. "Some edgy gangbanger trying to revive a symbol out of bad taste."

"Then what do they even need us for?"

"Seriously babe, just let me work," Barbara continued with a sigh, Dick returning to the place watching over her shoulder.

In the center of the screen was a photograph taken from the scene of the crime. The bodies had been cleared away but the bloody Batsymbol remained stained into the wall. Despite Barbara's critique, the craftsmanship was actually rather impressive, a only a few drops offsetting the deep red mural. Surrounding the image were a number of applications running different tests on the image as Barbara leaned into her hand and sipped from her mug.

"What did Sawyer even want you to test for?"

"Exactly what I suggested," Barbara said. "That whoever did this wasn't trying to say anything specific other than that they wanted the symbol. And from the looks of it they weren't. Like I said, just a punk with poor taste."

"You had to spend all morning re-installing files for that?"

"In our old line of work, you can never be too careful. But this doesn't look like it's going to be a problem. You don't see anything unusual, do you?"

"Other than some wackjob trying to pass himself off as Bruce? No. Like you said, typical." Looking over the recent files in the application, he raised an eyebrow and asked, "When were you searching through hospital records?"

"… A month or two ago," Barbara sighed. When Dick gave her a look she added, "I wasn't trying to do anything all that questionable. I peeked at a few old files and followed it with a search around online. It wasn't anything major."

"What were you looking at hospital records for?"

"Well, it's Stephanie's birthday in a few months, you know?"

"That's not until August. That's still five months away," Dick said.

"Well this gift might be time consuming. And I might even give it beforehand. I was thinking… Well… I looked through some records and found some information on an adoption over a decade ago. Some little girl named Jodie Miller."

"Please don't tell me you-"

"I didn't do anything rash, Dick. I promise," Barbara assured him. "I just did some snooping around. She's a beautiful girl. Bright, blonde hair, big smile. She and her family live over in Pennsylvania."

"You should leave that alone, Babs," Dick said. "What's going to be any better by trying to bridge that gap?"

"That's the thing. Jodie? She put up one of those pictures with the cardboard signs online, saying's looking for her birth mother. Just to know she exists."

"Babs… Steph doesn't want that. There's no way she wants that. She and Tim have kids of their own now. I can't imagine wanting to hear anything about this again at this point."

"I just wanted to offer her the information if she wanted to see it," Barbara said. "Well, one way or the other the street's got a new freak, but that's down to the police it looks like. No sign it was any of us, they said there weren't any fingerprints or anything."

"And you're not worried about that?" Dick asked.

"I'll just tell Sawyer the truth. No concrete conclusions, but probably didn't have anything to do with us. Hopefully it is just one tasteless punk and this'll all be over before we know it. And we'll leave it to the police. No use getting involved."

"Good."

As Barbara began unplugging her numerous USBs and hard drives, she stopped at one point to mention, "By the way, Robin invited Sarah to come over for a playdate tomorrow after school. I was going to take her and do some catching up with Stephanie. You can come along of course, if you want to talk."

"Is Tim going to be there?"

"It's his house too and he's about as skilled as Bruce was at trying to run a company," Barbara said. "So yes, I'm going to assume he'll be there."

"I can't then. I can hardly stand the way he leers at me when we're picking the kids up at the same time or we're at soccer games or whatever."

"Sooner or later you're going to have to get past this," Barbara said with a little frustration. "Robin and Oscar love their Uncle Dick. Sooner or later you need to patch things up. For them."

"I've tried patching things up, B. Tim just doesn't want to hear from me anymore. That's all there is to it." Dick crossed the room to the closet, pulling out and pulling on a jacket. "I need some fresh air, hon. Send that thing over to the police and close down. We didn't get this far to revert now."

Barbara pushed her wheelchair around to face him as he pulled on his shoes. "You really don't miss any of it at all, do you?"

"No," Dick said, kissing her forehead. "I don't miss the costumes. I don't miss the scrapes. And most of all, I don't miss worrying about if we're both coming home in one piece."


	3. Chapter 3

From a simple glance it probably appeared that Tim and Stephanie Drake had escaped their years alongside Batman with the least baggage to show for it. They were the first two to marry of the couples interspersed amongst Bruce's students, despite the years Dick and Barbara had ahead of them. Bruce had even still been alive when it happened, more than could be said of Cassandra, Dick or Barbara. With the fortunes attained from the inheritance of both his fathers Tim had only made a token appearance supporting the companies responsible for his wealth. For all intents and purposes he was retired, now spending most of his time with Stephanie and their children, Robin and Oscar.

"It was my grandfather's name," Tim had insisted when, three years after the fact, Barbara finally questioned him about it. "It's about all of got left of my mom's Judaism. It's only racial on the maternal side and we're raising the kids Catholic. Mom taught me to be proud of her side of the family, that's all."

"I think if Cassie hadn't started asking you both questions you probably never would have thought about that stuff again." Barbara had replied, rubbing at her swollen stomach. "But whatever works for you. Dick and I are talking about naming this one after someone we lost ourselves."

"That's so sweet," Stephanie said, sitting across from Barbara and wincing a little at the extra weight she herself was carrying. "C'mon, you gotta tell me. What's Robin's future best friend going to be named?"

"You really are naming that kid Robin, aren't you?" Barbara asked, shaking her head.

"Hey, I let Tim have the first name," Stephanie replied with a look towards her husband. "Even if I do think that if you want to name the baby, you should be the one having it."

Stephanie and Barbara both laughed at the idea as Tim turned away, showing a little red. "But how many kids get to be named after both their parents? Nobody's ever going to be like this again. And besides, the world could always use another girl Robin."

…

In an imitation of the way they had sat and chatted over coffee those seven years ago, the two former Batgirls relaxed in Stephanie's kitchen, watching their daughters play house in the living room.

"How come I always have to be the dad?" Robin complained, brushing a few of her messy, curly black hairs out of her face.

"Because Robin is a boy's name too," Sarah said. "I can't be the dad because Sarah isn't a boy's name."

"Why don't you make Oscar be the dad then?" Robin demanded.

"Because house is a girl's game!" Her brother shouted from behind the locked door of his bedroom. At this both Barbara and Stephanie laughed.

"You don't know how young they make me feel," Barbara said. "I'm glad house is exactly the same game now as it was back then. You played it growing up, didn't you?"

"Of course I did," Stephanie said. "We were always broke when I was little. House was always great because all you needed was a few dolls and your imagination."

"I remember a few times me and my friend Jess tied up my brother and smeared lipstick all over his face," Barbara chuckled quietly. "Kinda wonder if that's what made him snap years later."

Stephanie let out a laugh before quickly containing it and asking, "Does Sarah know about-"

"No. I think it's better that she doesn't know about him," Barbara said, sipping from her cup again. "How about you? Do they know about your dad?"

"Yeah," Stephanie sighed. "They've never met him. Judge let him out on good behavior years ago, but Tim insisted we should get a restraining order… I've talked to him a few times since. He lives in Metropolis now. I think he's gotten past everything, but I don't want the kids being around him. Not yet at least."

"Honey, I need your help picking out my shoes for lunch today," Sarah said.

"Why don't you pick out your own shoes? I'm just wearing my soccer cleats." Robin said.

"Those aren't 'propriate for a fancy lunch like this one!"

"Robin's as good at not caring about stuff as I am," Stephanie laughed. "Thank God I had you and my mom while I was picking out the wedding arrangements and stuff. Cassie and I were completely clueless." The two watched quietly for a minute or two before, in a hushed voice, Stephanie asked, "Hey, did you hear anything about those kills downtown a few days ago?"

"If you can believe it Commissioner Sawyer actually got ahold of me," Barbara replied. "She wanted to be sure he didn't have anything to do with us."

"What was the diagnosis, doc?"

"Nothing to really speak of. Messy symbol, a few dead perps… It's awful, don't get me wrong, but I think it's just some punk."

Stephanie double took at this. "How can you take this so casually?" She asked. "Somebody left a bat-symbol at the crime scene and you're hardly reacting?"  
"Oh I'm sure it's nothing," Barbara said. "Nothing we haven't seen a million times before."

"Mom! We're going to go watch TV." Robin called.

"It's a beautiful day outside," Stephanie said. "Why don't you two go play out there."

"Aw Mom, but it's boring-"

"You too Oscar!" She called, her son letting out a grown as he opened the bedroom door. He scowled, though did not resist. "Play outside for half an hour and you can come back in. Aunt B and I have some stuff to talk about." The two waited until the three of them had disappeared into the backyard against their will before resuming their conversation. "I still can't believe you're being so calm about everything."

"What are they gonna do? Try and kill me over stuff I did years ago?" Barbara asked. "I'm not hunting after anyone anymore… I miss it sometimes, but this is what I'm supposed to be doing right now. I can't believe you adjusted as well as you did."

Stephanie looked towards the window leading into the backyard at their children. "I never thought I was going to be able. The whole time I was pregnant with Oscar I just couldn't wait to get back on the field. I thought I was going to be calling my mom all the time to look after him. But when it finally happened, I just wasn't sure I had it in me anymore. I still want to do good, I still want to help people. But my kids Babs. I realized they need me now."

"Really makes you realize everything we put aside to work for Bruce," Barbara said. "It was hard to have anything but each other. I mean it when I say I miss it, but I'd never wanted to raise a kid back then."

Another fifteen minutes into their talk the front door opened and in came Tim, carrying an armful of grocery bags and setting them on the counter. The three children were only a few steps behind, carrying smaller bags and doing likewise. "I told them they could come in to help me get this stuff in," he quickly told his wife. "Then you can kick them right back out." He turned then to Barbara. "Hey there Babs."

"Hi Tim," Barbara said.

When the groceries had been brought in their three children were again exiled to the backyard, giving Tim the chance to echo his wife's thought. "Babs, did you hear about that drug dealer who got killed the other night?"

"You're not the first person to ask," Barbara said. "Yes yes yes, I heard about the bloody Batsymbol too. It's awful, but its got nothing to do with us."

"I don't think we can really pretend that that's true," Tim said dryly. "Like it or not, it does deal with all of us."

"No Tim, it would have dealt with Batgirl and Robin. We're former Batgirls and Robins. We should all just leave it to the police."

"I still can't believe someone's using Bruce's legacy like that," Tim said, shaking his head. "It's disgusting."

"We were dealing with it even back in the day," Barbara said. "You don't get to be a legend without a few bad imitators."


	4. Chapter 4

[[Author's note: I really kinda rushed into this one without doing nearly enough planning or editing. If you've been keeping up, thanks for your patience. It might behoove you to look at the first three chapters again. I did less to each as I did some editing, and needed a little bit to settle on which ideas I wanted to do with this story. Thanks so much for the support]]

Amongst the small crowd that poured out from Saint Michael's Cathedral that Wednesday night after mass and a pancake supper, only one was headed for the sidewalk instead of the parking lot or whistling for a cab. She was only a mile from her home, and she liked the walks to digest her thoughts. She was an Asian woman with a medium length head of black hair and a silver cross around her neck. A gift from her father.

Bruce was never a religious man. The cross had been less an acknowledgement of her faith as it had been a celebration of her personal choices and finding her own way in life. A weaker person than Cassandra Cain may have found their sense of faith destroyed by a world of tragedy such as hers.

Not, that she reflected silently, her religious life was always easy. In her childhood her biological father had forced her to endure years of pain and discipline. Even after finding a way to apply her deadly skills to something right and good amongst her family, she was forced to watch comrades and friends fall in the line of duty. Within the same year she discovered and joined the Catholic Church, she had been tortured for her beliefs. And shortly thereafter, she'd met the love of her life, a young woman named Sadie, only to wonder if the church would ever treat their marriage with anything but dissent.

 _Could be worse_ , she regularly told herself. _It was worse in my head._ Sadie had been an open secret since their marriage. Some talk spread amongst her fellow parishioners when they were encountered outside of mass and some had given her looks of clear disapproval. Even Monsignor Ryan, the initial inspiration for her religious life, remained uncomfortably quiet when she tried to talk about her relationship. Sometimes Cassandra wondered if he only continued to allow her to take communion because she had saved his life years before.

Sadie's agnosticism had helped to dispel some of the trouble as well. Since the two were never in church together, they could not be observed or judged in the middle of mass. Cassandra's public religious life remained firmly in one corner of her life, while private faith and private love had remained in another.

It was a relief for her to finally stop dressing up in uniform at night. Being Cassandra at church and Cassie at home had become complicated enough without dressing as Angel at night. And more than anything else, it was just nice to not be fighting anymore.

"Yo! Fortune cookie! I just had my take out and I'm ready to crack you open and see what's inside!"

… Usually.

Cassandra stopped in her place and gave a glare at the gangly man trying to solicit her, a few cronies of his a few steps behind, laughing at his bad joke. "Where you comin' from pretty lady?"

"Church." Cassandra said, turning to face them and adjusting her jacket, a tiny glint flashing off her diamond ring.

"Oooh, yeah?" Their leader asked, crossing over to her. He stank of some awful drug, though she was too out of practice to identify what. He reached into his shirt and flashed a rosary. "What a coincidence. It's my good luck charm."

"You aren't supposed to wear those," Cassandra said as her anger continued to build.

"Where's your husband at?" The heavy standing just behind the rosary wearing man asked. "He shouldn't let a pretty thing like you walk out here all alone. These streets is dangerous."

Cassandra clenched her fists, sure a fight was coming, but doing everything in her power to not escalate the situation. Even as the thugs made themselves increasingly attackable. "My wife is at home, waiting for me." As the men continued to laugh and drop condescending one liners, she got a good look at her opposition. Four of them: their leader with the rosary, the heavy with torn sleeves, standing probably six and a half feet, and two more for support, one with a knife, the other with a baseball bat. A little smile came across Cassandra's face.

 _Lord, forgive me_ , she said to herself. _I had one too many bad stares at mass tonight._

"Why don't you bring that broad down too? We can show you both how a real man does it."

"I am giving you a chance," Cassandra said slowly. "Go away. I won't ask again."

The gang's leader was laughing harder now than ever as his goons started to close in. "Tell you what China doll, I like your style. How about we just start with the mouth?" And with that he mockingly stuck out his tongue, a rhinestone stud running through the center.

This was Cassandra's breaking point. Too fast for the hit to properly be seen she punched the man right between the eyes with her left hand, her diamond ring leaving a violent mark on his face before he fell to the ground like it was nothing. His three cronies stared down at him in disbelief before turning and all setting upon Cassandra at once.

 _Good. I needed some exercise._

Cassandra did not believe in engaging any longer in battle than absolutely necessary, it had been part of her philosophy for as long as she had been in costume. But years of facing opponents had long since taught her that most opponents were persistent, and it would take a little extreme force to keep them down.

When the three reached her Cassandra dodged first to the side of the attacker with the baseball bat. Grabbing a firm hold on his right arm, Cassandra pulled and twisted it until he yelled out in pain and released the weapon. With another jerk and twist she threw him to the ground and grabbed ahold of the bat. When the one with the knife took a stab, Cassandra swatted it out of his hand with the wooden bat, shuffled forward and kicked him in the jaw, knocking him to the ground as well.

With only the heavy remaining, Cassandra adjusted her jacket again to face him, the man stunned by the short order he'd disposed of his comrades before attempting to strike her himself. He took the longest to bring down, sustaining over five punches to the face and three kicks to the gut, but couldn't lay a finger on the former Batgirl. In short order the three reinforcements were on the ground, groaning in defeat.

Cassandra was about to resume her trek home when she turned to see the man with the rosary leaning against a nearby building, raising a pistol towards her head. "You just had to give me a screw, dyke!" He yelled. "Forget it, I'm blowing your brains out!"

Her eyes darted towards the ground. His aim would be off thanks to the punch, she would be able to dodge him fine. Without another moment of thought, she lunged towards a nearby alley just as the roar of a bullet filled the air. Followed by another, another and another.

However, when Cassandra stood up to take her stance again, she became aware of the disturbing moment that had just passed. The man with the rosary hadn't even managed to pull the trigger: someone else had fired and shot him right in the head. In disbelief, Cassandra looked towards his three companions, now also lying in growing pools of blood. She turned up at the dark alley she had dodged into, looking for someone to have pulled the trigger. "You killed them!" She shouted. "I didn't need that, you shouldn't have done it!"

The alley set, black and silent for a few seconds before, still shrouded in complete darkness, a voice said, "Attempted physical and sexual assault. Those men broke the law. Now they won't break it again."

Cassandra double took and was forced to take a step back. _That voice… No_ , she insisted to herself. _No… No that's impossible. Impossible in every way_. "Who are you?" She demanded.

"I'm the one doing what I have to," the voice said. "I've been away much too long. And I hate to see what this city has become without me."

Gritting her teeth, Cassandra ran into the alley, searching for some owner to the ominously familiar voice. "Come out!" She yelled. "Face me!"

"No. I don't want to fight you. I know you. I know you're one of the good ones… Cassandra." She froze in place in place for a second before searching harder than ever before catching a fleeting glimpse of some figure dressed in a cape just escaping her view. She remained for a moment, struggling to comprehend the situation before she heard a weak "Uuugh," from the opposite direction. Remembering what had just transpired she ran over to the man who was holding the knife, shaking and barely able to breath, but still clinging to life.

"Hold on," Cassandra said as she ran to his side, tipping his head upward so the blood wouldn't choke him. "I will call for help."

As she held her would-be attacker and made the call for an ambulance, she just kept shaking her head, silently insisting, _It isn't him. It can't be him… I know it can't be him…_


	5. Chapter 5

Above all else, the details surrounding the death of The Batman were anticlimactic. It was around 5 AM on a Tuesday night in the middle of November. There had been a run in with The Mad Hatter involving a body builder under his control serving as his bodyguard, Jervis Tetch going on about "What a silly, ugly hat that is" and asking the vigilante how a bat was like a writing desk. At some point in the process one of his tophats was forced over the Dark Knight's cowl, delivering a blast of electricity through his suit and body. Batman had long since grown used to combating attacks such as these, and managed to fend The Hatter with a few strikes and tear the piece from his head. The body builder put up a more substantial fight, even managing to grab a knife out of a glass case (which The Hatter had marked "Vorpal Sword") and cut through Batman's armor, tearing out a chunk around his bicep. Though the tiny part of him was uncovered, the vigilante paid it little mind and defeated him in a few strikes. Upon attempting to use the radio built into his helmet however, he found it had been fried by the electrical attack. The sun would rise in just a few hours, surely he could do without.

The hour that followed was uneventful. There was no formal rendezvous amongst the team most nights, only an occasional call for backup or question about a case under investigation. The Dark Knight trusted his pupils well, and was confident in their abilities and independence.

He only interrupted his journey back to Wayne Manor when he heard a struggle in a nearby alley. He was making his way to the Batmobile by grapple, and meant to return to hiding before the morning's light overtook the city. But there was some kind of scuffle going on in the apartment he was running across. A domestic dispute, as it turned out.

The police report filed later, together with the testimony of the apartment's renters, indicated he broke in just after the first shot was fired. The assailant was a twenty-eight years old man named Bobby Degen, heavily intoxicated. The drunk man was shouting, mocking one of the man opposite him, one of Middle Eastern descent, as he laid in shock of the bullet wound. The attacker went on about how his family were the most violent and disgusting pigs on the face of the earth. How Islam only produced murderers and rapists and how he was defending himself from the unspeakable deeds they'd surely try and commit against him in the future. The victim's wife and children sobbed in the corner of the room, praying desperately for aid.

Batman stood before Degen as glass met with ground, issuing the simple but effecting warning, "You don't want to do this." He permitted Degen to ramble for a minute, spewing all kinds of angry xenophobia before raising his handgun and returning a warning to the Dark Knight. "If you're not with me, you're against me."

In the years after the fact, some of the Batman Family silently wondered if it wasn't an unconscious arrogance that led to what followed. For years he had fought monstrous clowns, grotesque billionaires with trick umbrellas, even an immortal swordsman. Surely a single racist fool could never accomplish what they had not. A single lunge, like countless before, and Degen took his shot. The blast soared right through the place the "vorpal sword" had cut, passing right through Batman's heart before colliding with the opposite side of his armor. By the time Degen had been brought to the ground, Batman was silently becoming aware of what had happened. He had been shot at countless times, had fought off many times he had accepted the bullets personally. But he already knew this was different. He wasn't sure he'd ever felt something like this before. Within seconds, still conscience, but struggling, he began to feel his body go numb.

In a panic the victim's wife went for the gun as quickly as she could. She put a bullet in Degen's head and tried in distress to call paramedics for her husband and the night's savior. Abdul Farrah would survive the night with no lasting physical damage. Bruce Wayne was not so lucky. Perhaps if the system is constantly checking his vitals are turning information to Alfred back at the Manor were still working, the rest of his allies could've been alerted to the situation. Maybe one of them could have secured him returning to the manor were all kinds of lifesaving technology awaited him. Maybe.

But this was not the case. He was taken away along with Abdul and the body of Degen for medical examination and police identification. Naturally no one in the Gotham police force believed for a moment he was the real thing, just another fool looking for attention, just another young man trying to pretend to be a hero. But the longer the old commissioner looked him over more he couldn't shake the sense of familiarity. All of the pieces seem to be there. The armor, the physique, the eyes that sat dead and wide-open, it all added up. He called upon the one member the Batman Family he knew he could ask for clarification.

Barbara Gordon met her father at the coroner's office. She couldn't believe what he described on the phone of course and was certain just the way that he was. Another rookie, another attempt at self-importance, something like that. It had to be. But it wasn't. She sat and stared at the body for the better part of fifteen minutes trying to discern something that her father had missed. Out of respect and a simple question the commissioner stepped out of the room. Barbara peeled back the mask and looked upon the face of the corpse and for the next hour she sat in stunned silence before she began to sob. She didn't need the upcoming DNA test to know she had lost one of her most precious friends.

With the man behind the mask revealed to the commissioner he took a vow of silence on the matter. The public identity of the Batman being released could cause a massive stir across the city. This information needed to be guarded. If it was set free, who knows what dangers it could present. The death of Bruce Wayne was chocked up to a gas leak in the manor that had been overlooked, his fortune distributed between his butler, three sons, one daughter and two beloved family friends. That should have been the end of it.

And yet didn't seem like something was missing? Some piece of the puzzle was being ignored? Bruce had been in dangerous situations all time, surely he could've anticipated direction the bullet would've been flying in, it was practically his bread and butter. Wasn't it just too convenient that there is no way to get a sign on his vitals, you've and if it probably wouldn't have made a difference anyway? There is no set protocol for will follow such a situation, but some small part of Dick Grayson had always wondered. You've been all these years later something didn't add up. Was this really an active face or is this a long orchestrated plan to disappear from the spotlight, maybe forever, or maybe just temporarily. There was a time when his old mentor still being alive would've made him overjoyed. Time when you can look and feel a sense of comfort by the return of his adoptive father. But sitting across from and hearing testimony from his sister, he was growing ever more fearful of those thoughts.

Dick and Barbara sat quietly in Cassandra's apartment. It was a sparsely decorated but strangely elegant place, an ornate teapot sitting on the counter, comfortable chairs and a few expressionist paintings Sadie insisted tied the place together on the wall. Sadie served the two coffee before sitting down at Cassandra's side as she troublingly recalled her trip back from church.

"I spent the entire trip to and from that hospital with that man trying to understand. Who could that man be, why did he do what he did?"

"Well, you're the first real eyewitness account we've really had." Dick said. "There been some reports and some whispers on the street but this... I can't believe someone actually managed to get so close."

"And he knew my name," Cassandra reminded him.

"He did, didn't he... That's... That's very troubling."

"I really hate to bring this up," Sadie said quietly, "I mean, I never really knew Bruce Wayne. I didn't know he was Batman at all until after he died. I bumped into him once in a while at you guys' family functions and stuff like that, but I didn't know him… But I felt like we all knew some things about Batman. Wasn't Batman always supposed to be prepared for any situation? Always planning for anything? Didn't you ever find it weird that he was killed in such a mundane way?"

"Of course we found it strange. We all wondered if he wasn't going to turn up a year or two later. But its been a decade now," Barbara said. "Bruce would do what was necessary, but he wouldn't leave us out of the know for so long."

"And he wouldn't just turn up again and start killing people out of the blue. You can trust me on that." Dick added.

Sadie turned away, as if embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to suggest anything like that. You knew him better than me, I shouldn't have said anything."

"It is alright," Cassandra said. "You didn't know."

"I should be nicer about my father-in-law," Sadie insisted. "He did more for me or any of us than I ever really think about… You know I remember my brother taking me out trick-of-treating once when I was a kid and he told me we weren't going to go to this one haunted house that had just set up shop a few blocks from our apartment. I was, like, nine, I thought he was just being overprotective. I grew up on horror movies and stuff like that. But I came to find out, like a week later, that that one guy, Calendar Man? He was running the haunted house, kidnapping kids not much older than me and demanding ransom before Batman and Batgirl beat the snot out of him.

Barbara flashed a little grin. "I think I remember that night."

"It's just so weird to think that was you guys," Sadie said. "And I'd never believe for a second that killer was any of you. So if you're telling me it can't be Bruce, I believe you. That's only fair."

The four sat in uncomfortable quiet for a minute or two before conversation swerved in better directions. Questions of how Sarah was doing in school, Sadie mentioning they'd been talking about getting a dog and other pleasantries. Cassandra remained mostly quiet, still struggling with the scare of the previous night.

"I don't think we need kids. Not right now at least," Sadie said with a shrug. "A dog would do just fine. I mean, besides, we do have kids, just part time. I like being an aunt, and I think I'm pretty good at it."

"I don't know, Sarah's usually pretty impossible to get to sleep when I ask you two to babysit," Barbara said. "I've had a suspicion you're feeding her jelly and candy sandwiches when my back is turned."

"Tim and Stephanie never complain," Cassandra said at last, trying her hardest to be lighthearted.

"Tim and Steph's kids can annoy each other when they're feeling hyperactive. Sarah only has us," Dick said.

Cassandra gave a little laugh as Barbara looked at her watch. "We should probably leave if we want to get Ms. Sarah from book club before traffic gets bad."

Sadie's face was almost instantly in her hand as she held back laughter. "I'm sorry, but that's still so funny to me. I just picture Sarah and a bunch of other little girls sitting around, drinking wine, bitching about their husbands and nobody's talking about the book. That's still just the funniest thing to be."

"Yeah, well, she better be reading those books, she better not be drinking wine and she needs to tell me if she's got an insufferable husband. I'll hit the punk with my chair." This finally elicited a real laugh from Cassandra.

Goodbyes were said, hugs were shared and within minutes, Dick and Barbara were standing again in the elevator.

"… So you really don't think it's him?" Barbara asked.

"What? No." Dick said. "Why, do you?"

"No, I just wanted to make sure you weren't just playing it up for Cassie."

"We've dealt with imposters before," Dick said. "Imposters were the whole reason we ended hanging everything up in the first place. This guy's just a little better than the past ones were."

"But he still knew Cassie's name…"

"Well… So do a few other people. We ought to call the GCPD and make sure this isn't one of them."

"Sawyer isn't just going to expose one of her own like that."

"And maybe someone needs to make a call into Arkham." Dick said gravely. "Find out how our old buddy Prometheus is doing…"


	6. Chapter 6

None of the Batman's students were really prepared for what to do in the event of his death. They were all so convinced he could only have been killed by extra-dimensional beings and rampaging gods that the cruel reality of such a sudden demise left the six without a clear path forward.

There were others of course, from all walks of life, from the wayward ally Huntress to the long since opposing Red Hood. But Bruce Wayne valued six as his most prized and precious pupils: his sons Dick, Tim and Damian, his daughter Cassandra, his daughter-in-law Stephanie and the one above all else he called "partner," Barbara. The six, along with his second father Alfred, were left a majority of his estate, with smaller pieces bequeathed to the likes of Selina Kyle and Lucius Fox, a small fortune even somehow privately given to Doctor Victor Fries, under the condition the funds could only be used for medical purposes. Three years later, the United States Center for Disease Control received a vial and some instructions on preparing new batches of its contents. It bore no return address, but was signed From Victor and Nora, each signature distinct from the other.

That Batman family were left with the matter of responding to his death, no one really sure what direction to take as they sat in their former leader's study, flames dancing in the fireplace. "Sooner or later Gotham's going to notice," Tim said. "I think we all learned our lesson about power vacuums back in the Matches Malone incident."

"No need to rub salt in the wound there or anything, Tim," Stephanie said, rolling her eyes.

"If we need a different example, I'll remind you I'm the one who had to tag along with Jean Paul Valley after Bane broke Bruce's spine," Tim said. "Not having Batman is hard enough, but it starts opening the floodgates for having worse people show up."

"You can't just rush out there in my father's costume," Damian said. "Maybe some of the idiots at the bottom of the food chain won't notice, but you and Grayson are a far cry from him. Anyone whose actually fought him will know in an instant. Grayson wastes his time with flips and tricks and you, Drake, you have the reaction time of a drunk toddler."

"Watch your mouth over there," Dick said. "We've all having a hard enough time coping as is."

"Better be glad I have such a slow reaction time," Tim said. "Otherwise I'd have already punched your lights out."

"Getting back to the topic at hand," Barbara said, "We'll probably at least have some time before everyone starts to notice. Bruce could only ever be in one place at a time, after all. Maybe we can come up with an excuse without damaging the symbol's power."

"They will know," Cassandra said quietly, eyes facing downward. "You know that, Barbara. Without him, the bat means nothing."

"It doesn't mean nothing, Cassie," Stephanie said. "Our costumes still have bats on them, and bad guys surrender to you on sight…. They usually kick me around a little, but no one messes with The Angel, you know that."

"… You actually may be on to something there, Steph," Dick said. Every eye turned to him as he said it, waiting for him to continue. "Maybe we can't hide that Bruce is gone, but we can let them know we won't stand for an uprising just because he's gone. We can re-embroider the suits, slap a bat on every one of them. Maybe one of us shouldn't play at being Batman, maybe we all have to."

"I'm sure Gotham's underworld is just going to be quaking in their boots because the circus boy replaced his bird with a bat," Damian said. "Seriously, for the umpteenth time, I know where three of my grandfather's Lazarus Pits are, and I know one is usually minimal security—"

"And for the umpteenth time, the answer is no," Barbara snapped. "No Lazarus Pits, no deals with the Phantom Stranger, no calling on anyone with a time machine. Somehow, someway doing that will probably cause Condiment King to become a Kryptonian or something and then he's trying to kill us for all the times we mocked him." She let out a sigh as she looked at her team, resting her head on an open hand. "You five are going to have a lot on your hands for a while. If I could get up and fight beside you, I would."

"… Five might be pushing it a little there, Babs…" Everyone turned to Stephanie as she exchanged her own with Tim, who gave her a nod. "I wanted to wait until things were going better. Not bring this up at a bad time." Her hand rested gently on her stomach. "You know how they say when one door closes, another one opens? I think we lost one of us just in time for another."

Barbara, Dick and Damian had their own looks mixed from surprise, happiness and unease. Cassandra just looked confused. "I don't understand."

Stephanie's laugh shattered the tension, and within moments the others were joining her."Cassie… we're having a baby. Tim's going to be a dad, I'm going to be a mom, and you're going to be a godmother."

…

Tim sat in his office, putting in his nominal hen hours of work per week. Years ago he had been content to let the company run itself, but as instances of cyber attacks grew more common, he arrived just long enough to double check the many proposals his shareholders funneled to him. The outline of a black goatee showed upon his face and between emails he wondered if he should grow it out again. Robin had said it made him look like a super-villain. Tim had told her bad people could look like anyone and she shouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions, but her words had gotten to him and he gave in and shaved. He was always trying to win his daughter's approval.

His children didn't know about his and their mother's past lives. Oscar had only been a year old when the suits had been retired, and it wasn't as if any proof of the days of old had been left for him to find. Robin wasn't an unpopular name in Gotham, with two others (a boy and a girl) both in his daughter's grade. Tim had insisted they go to public school, after how disjointed and distant private school had made him from his own parents.

He turned up at the sound of a light tapping on his office door, though noted the knocker had let himself in before making the sarcastic sound. It was Don Briggs, one of his personal assistants. "Mister Drake, Derek Powers has sent over another representative. Security just showed him out, but he swears Powers' firm won't let up until you open discussion on the merger again."

"Powers can send me a dozen informants every day of the week," Tim said. "He's wasting his time. Maybe he'll hire so many I can buy him out and close down those ticking nuclear plants he has running just outside our city."

"If you say so," Briggs said.

"Lexcorp called it quits, this guy will too." Tim said. The cellphone on his desk began to ring, and he shooed Briggs away with the words, "That's probably my wife." As his associate stepped out, he answered with, "Hello?"

"Hey, Tim," Stephanie said, the sound of rattling and metal in the background reminding him she was heading out of town by train that day. "I just got a call from Samuelson. Oscar's in the principal's office again."

Tim sighed. "What now?"

"Some kids were making fun of Robin's name, she got a pigtail pulled at recess. Oscar saw it and punched one right in the face. Apparently Sarah got in the middle of it and she's in there too. I'd go and handle this, but I'm halfway to Metropolis right now."

"Yeah, I know," Tim said. "I'll handle it. See you tomorrow. Love you."

"Love you too." Stephanie said as she ended the call and sank back into her seat.

An older woman sitting across from her looked up from her newspaper, as if looking for something to do. "He sounds like a good man."

"My husband? Yeah, I like him I suppose,"Stephanie said with a little laugh.

"I hope you're all taking extra care. Those cursed Batman stories are coming up again. I'm hoping to get away from them for a bit.

"Yeah, sure," Stephanie said. "I'm just going to visit my dad. Trust me, he hates Batman."


	7. Chapter 7

Between every sentence of conversation, Arthur Brown reached into the bag sitting next to his Laz-E-Boy, grab a few peanuts, crack them open with his teeth and turn the now half shell into his mouth. The retired super-villain's daughter looked on in disgust as he did so. "Seriously, Dad, do you have to keep doing that? It's gross."

"You tell me to quit taking painkillers, so I start smoking again. You tell me to quit smoking, so I start eating peanuts. You tell me to quit eating peanuts, what am I supposed to do?"

"Maybe you could just start by using your fingers or something," Stephanie said.

The father and daughter only barely tolerated one another's company, the years they had exchanged blows ever present in their minds. Arthur's once bright blonde hair was beginning to white as he grew older, wrinkles spread across the nasty scar covering half his face. He owned a tiny, messy two-bedroom house paid for with his lowly stocking job. There was a rhythm to the conversations they shared.

"How's your mom?"

"Fine."

"Husband?"

"Fine."

"Kids?"

"Fine."

"Good… When are you going to let me meet them?"

It had been at this point Stephanie complained about his eating habits, but the question was still fresh in his mind. "You didn't answer me before, by the way."

Stephanie sighed. "When I'm sure it isn't a terrible idea."

"You're killing me, Steph. I've been sober half a decade, been out of prison two years longer than that. You come visit me here to visit a time or two a year."

"I'm a lot more willing to make terrible decisions for myself than my kids, Dad." Stephanie said.

"Yeah, I should say so, considering there was something like a year in there you were apparently dead," Arthur said. "You know I tried to quit robbing places a hundred times for you? You know how often Crystal held that 'Our daughter is growing up without a father' garbage over my head?"

"You think that was garbage, huh?" Stephanie asked.

"Oh sure, model parent your mom was, smuggling pills out of the hospital and keeping them for herself."

"Mom got better," Stephanie snapped. "Don't talk about her like that."

"If you haven't noticed, I got better too," Arthur said. "I got my act together, got the hell out of Gotham and I'm getting everything worked out." He referred to his bag. "You've got me eating peanuts for God's sake. You probably let Crystal see those kids of yours all the time."

"Mom has had plenty of time to earn my trust back," Stephanie said. "She never hurt me the way you did."

"Considering the multiple times you beat the hell out of me, I would think we'd be closer to even." The two went quiet for a few beats before Stephanie rose and walked to the kitchen. "Grab me a ginger ale, would you?" Arthur said.

Giving a refrigerator a look through, Stephanie glared first at its contents and then at her father. "I thought you were sober. What's with all the hard lemonades?"

"I bought those for you," Arthur said. "I thought you liked them after you ordered one at that crappy restaurant last year. There weren't any individual ones, so I had to buy a six-pack."

"I don't think I believe you," Stephanie said, cracking one open with the bottle-opener magnet on the fridge.

"If you want them all, take them. Last drink I had gave me nightmares for days." Stephanie handed him a can of ginger ale before taking her seat again. "Are you even doing anything anymore? Or does your husband cover everything?"

"I volunteer at the kids' school and our church when I feel like it," Stephanie said. "But I think if I have the time, it's best that I spend it with Oscar and Robin."

"I'm sure they just love that," Arthur said, rolling his eyes."Church huh? What's your husband again?"

"Catholic. My husband's Catholic, my kids are Catholic, my best friend is Catholic."

"Thought your best friend was a lesbian."

"Yeah well, she'd tell you they're not mutually exclusive."

"And you?" Arthur asked.

"No. Too many rules for me. I go with my family on Sunday, they let me work their fundraisers and stuff, but I haven't converted. I like being a Methodist just fine."

"I ever tell you about the time I joined a cult?" Arthur asked. "Joined in with some freaks at Blackgate, should still have a badly done tattoo on my lower back."

Stephanie looked on in disgust. "Wait, what? Why the hell did you do that?"

"They liked blonde haired people. The other guys would give me extra food at lunchtime. You haven't had prison food, it's complete garbage and they never give you enough."

"Okay, there you go. One more reason you haven't met your grandkids yet. Anyone else would talk about how they liked to go fishing or what dumb old fashions they dressed in. You, you've got to tell stories about being in prison and joining a cult."

"It is what it is." Arthur said. "What do you want to do for food?"

"I don't know. I don't really care," Stephanie said, sipping her spiked lemonade. "You know this city better than I do."

Noting the bowl he was collecting his peanut shells in had filled, Arthur stood up and walked it to the kitchen to toss them away. "… Speaking of me being in prison… There's talk the Batman has finally come back to Gotham."

Stephanie frowned, but she wasn't surprised, just upset the news had already reached Metropolis. "So?"

"What do you mean, 'so,' you knew him, didn't you?" Arthur asked.

"Didn't you?"

"Don't change the subject," Arthur said. "I know full and well you worked for him. For a while, I know you even played Robin."

"I don't know who this guy is, Dad," Stephanie said. "The Batman I knew died ten years ago. I was there when Nightwing announced it."

Arthur was quiet for a minute or so before he returned to his chair, grabbed a few more peanuts and asked, "You sure about that?"

"What do you mean?" Stephanie asked.

"I was just thinking about it. Back in the day, a bit after you started playing Robin, I heard the news you were dead. Details were hazy, I wasn't totally sure it was you at first… if I knew who tried to do it, I would have killed them."

"You wouldn't have wanted to try that, Dad," Stephanie said. "He's dead now. He's not worth worrying about."

Arthur flashed a glare. "Who was it?"

"Dad…"

"Just tell me. I want closure on this."

"… Roman Sionis. Black Mask."

Arthur heaved a sigh. "I didn't know him. Wouldn't have ever had the chance to kill him." The two went quiet briefly before Arthur continued, "But my point is, you didn't die."

"No. Someone faked it. I'm still not totally sure why. I mean, whether it was to try and do the right thing, or to just prove a point."

"So tell me," Arthur said. "What brought you back to Gotham?"

"A sense of obligation. Mom. The guy I eventually married."

"But you did it yourself? Batman didn't hunt you down?" Stephanie nodded, Arthur stroking his chin. "That's what I was wondering… so the Batman never knew you were alive."

"He'd tell you he did," Stephanie said. "He'd tell you he had a hunch I was still alive. I don't know if it's true or not, it was a tough subject for us for a while. It took me a while to forgive him for that mess." Realizing they had gotten off subject, she asked, "So what's your point?"

"My point is that whether you like it or not, you're the Cluemaster's daughter. You're not stupid, Steph, those giant hoop earrings you used to wear aside." He let the comment sink in briefly before continuing, "Batman, the so called 'World's Greatest Detective' couldn't know for sure if one of his associates was dead or not. So if you could fool him, I'm pretty sure he could fool you."

"I know it isn't him, Dad," Stephanie said. "I saw his body. I saw him in the coffin, no mask on or anything. He's gone, he hasn't come back."

"Didn't he think he saw you? Wouldn't he have gone to far more trouble if he hadn't seen you buried?"

Stephanie's look was notably thrown by this conversation, and it left her briefly silenced before she said, "You've got too much time to work on conspiracy theories, Dad."

…

Just outside the office of Principal Hansen sat two weary fathers, one beside his daughter, the other beside his son, patiently waiting to be beckoned in. The children spoke among themselves, but their fathers, for the most part, keeping their distance.

"… So… Tim… How's Steph today?"

"Fine. Going to Metropolis." He was curt.

"Sure. Sure. Babs is away on some business today."

"Is Mom going to be home tonight?" Sarah asked.

"She shouldn't be too late," Dick said. "You still need to tell me what happened."

"Alan Lemming was picking on Robin," Oscar said. "He and some other bullies called her names and pulled her hair."

"You pull your sister's hair and call her names all the time," Tim said. "He didn't ask you, Oscar, calm down."

"They started a fight with Robin, I was standing up to them. Sarah was just helping me, Uncle Dick. I promise, we just wanted to do the right thing."

"Is all that true, Sarah?" Dick asked. "Did those other kids start the fight?"

"I promise, Daddy." She turned to Tim. "And I promise, Uncle Tim."

The two sat on this silently, both knowing affirming their children's actions would be wrong in a space like the school. After all, how many times had they fought to protect those who had been backed into a corner?

"Am I in trouble?" Sarah asked.

"… I don't want my decision to impact what your uncle decides to do or what Oscar has to be afraid of. We'll talk about it when we get home."

Just on the office threshold the four remained, Hansen still in discussion with the Lemming family. After a few minutes, Dick rose and said, "Be right back."

He navigated down the hall to a bathroom intended for the first grade class and went about his business with some tactical positioning. Though he hated foam soap the poster of a grumbling, anthropomorphic bacteria talking about living under his fingernails convinced him to lather up. With a loose shake he proceeded back to the hall, wiping his hands along his slacks before catching sight of Tim waiting for him.

"Sorry about this," he said. "Didn't want to try and talk about anything in front of the kids."

"I'm just surprised you're trying to address anything with me at all," Dick said. "What's the occasion?"

"… With Steph going down to see her dad and the kids in Sunday school and things like that, I've been thinking about forgiveness, you know?"

"Forgiveness, huh?" Dick said.

"Yes… I don't know if I can forgive you for the position you put me in… but I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't try."

"Wow, that's more than I've gotten out of you in years, Tim."

"Look, Oscar and Sarah have a soccer game next weekend. Why don't you and Barbara come over to our house when it's all over? Have a few drinks, catch up… give us a chance to all act like family again."

"I haven't gotten to do that since Robin was born'" Dick said. "We'll be there, of course."

Despite Dick's smile being earnest and Tim's being forced, neither could internally deny that they hoped desperately this meeting would go well. For the moment, however, they had to return to their punished children.

…

Miles away, Barbara adjusted her glasses, glaring out the window of Commissioner Sawyer's police cruiser. "When's the last time you were here?" Sawyer asked.

"A long time," Barbara said, handing Sawyer her ID to be handed off to the guard running the security booth. Tim's investments had made little difference. Underneath coats of fresh paint, the new concrete covering the road and what were surely countless technological advancements within, it was all still exactly the same.

Arkham Asylum: Hell on Earth.

…

[[Author's… Note? Nah, more like confession:

I really hate to do this at this point in the story, especially as I move towards some of the meaty bits, but this project is goi g on the back burner for just a little bit. I'm not saying updates won't come, I'm just saying they won't be a priority for the rest of November.

Some of you may know November as National Novel Writing Month… I'm not using it as that, but will be using it as "MJTR ends some stories" month. I currently have five other projects that were supposed to be short and small I have severely been neglecting, and will be using November to try and knock as many of them out as possible. If you've been enjoying this piece, I would encourage you to check out some of my other works, since they all have a similar cadence but explore a lot of different ideas.

When these are done attention will return to this piece and the true sequel to Angel of the Bat. I look forward to resuming this with you guys soon, just gonna go tie up some loose ends first.]]


	8. Chapter 8

It was more paranoia of times gone by than anything else that haunted Arkham Asylum. Barbara had to continue reminding herself that most insane individuals were not actually violent as she wheeled herself a few steps behind Sawyer through the atrium. The inmates who met her glances seemed to share her paranoia, confirming they were more afraid of her than she was of them.

At the end of the atrium stood two security officers in deep blue uniforms, standing guard over an elevator whose signs stressed constantly it was not for personal use. "Commissioner Sawyer," one of the guards, a tall, stern looking Asian man, said in welcome. "I'm Officer Nguyen, I was instructed to lead you and your guest to the maximum isolation sector."

"Lead the way then," Sawyer said.

The other gruff looking guard pressed the button and called for the elevator, Nguyen scanning his key card against the wall and calling the four down to the fifth basement floor.

"… Spooky stuff goes on down here, you know," Nguyen said. "I mean, I figured you'd know that already. The people down here, they're… they're not pleasant."

"I figured as much," Sawyer said. "I was there when a lot of them were arrested, you don't have to worry about me."

"Well then I didn't mean to try and scare your guest."

"I've seen some things myself," Barbara said. "And I've met the man we're going to see."

Silence took the four for a few minutes before the elevator finally came to a stop. Nguyen looked out at the open corridor, checking first left, then right, as he stepped out of the lift.

Instantly he slipped and fell onto the floor, shouting in pain and irritation. Barbara and Sawyer both glared down the hallway as a horrible, shrill cackle came echoing down.

"Beautiful, Officer Nguyen! Just beautiful! Right on your ass! You should have seen your face!"

As the figure came bolting down the hallway, Sawyer pulled her gun, raised it and said, "Freeze!"

"No!" Nguyen said as the figure came into view. It took everything Barbara had to not rush to meet him.

In the years since Batman's death his bright green hair had begun to gray. His eyes didn't seem to open as wide anymore and all color seemed lost from his lips. But there was no denying The Joker when you saw him.

"What are you doing out of your cell?" Sawyer demanded.

"Oooh! Lookie! Miss Maggie came down to visit me! I haven't seen you in ages, old girl!" He said excitedly as he offered Nguyen a hand up.

"What are you doing out of your cell?" Barbara said, louder and more fiercely than Sawyer had.

"Neither of you give him any attention," Nguyen said as he was helped to his feet. "Sometimes he gets out, we've just accepted it." He looked down and angrily at the banana peel beneath his shoe. "He likes to pull pranks on us, is all." He laid a hand on The Joker's back, patting him a few times as he led him away. "Come on, let's get you locked back up."

As the pale man turned back around to look at the guests from the outside, a tiny part of him recognized Barbara in her chair. He pulled Nguyen's hand off of his shoulder and turned to look her in the eyes. "Gordon? Ol' Jim Gordon's daughter? Is that you?"

Having grown accustomed to his presence, Barbara gave him a glare. "That's right."

"I was the one who put you in that chair, wasn't I?" Barbara said nothing, just holding her glare. "Sorry about that."

This managed to break Barbara's glare, causing her to double take. There had been an air of sincerity to the way he had said it. He had meant it, but from parenting, she couldn't shake the thought he sounded like a child who had spilt a glass of milk. Apologizing for a mistake that wasn't so significant in the grand scheme of things.

Nguyen returned a few minutes later, still apologizing profusely. "What kind of asylum are you running that the most dangerous criminal in Gotham's history can just slip out?" Sawyer demanded.

"You don't understand, ma'am," Nguyen said. "His cell is designed to be escapable. We give him stuff like banana peels and whipped cream every now and again so he can play pranks on the guards."

"Why the hell would you do that?" Barbara asked.

"Anymore, J's like a puppy," Nguyen said. "He needs to constantly be stimulated or else he'll be destructive to himself and others… I mean… sort of. He hasn't tried to kill anybody in years. We tried just having him upstairs with the other inmates if he wasn't _really_ going to hurt anyone. But as you can imagine, having him joy-buzz schizophrenics and blow air horns at patients with anxiety just didn't work out. If we let him just have his fun now and again, he just makes harmless practical jokes."

Barbara and Sawyer exchanged looks of disbelief at Nguyen's summary as he led them down the corridor. A single door sat at the end of the hallway, six doors on each side leading there. They bore no windows and no identifying features save for the tiny metal plates that bore a single letter and a line of numbers. Barbara was sure Prometheus himself was contained at the end of the hall, and could only hazard guesses at what the other rooms contained. At least until she rolled past the room marked "K.6614" and she could hear the light sound of metal hitting the ground.

"ORACLE!"

The three came to a freezing halt as they turned towards the door the shout had come from. A pair of maddened, bloodshot eyes behind a pair of glasses with whitening hair falling over them was visible from where the identification plate had been pushed out from. His voice was shrill and unsteady as he tried to slip bony fingers through the tiny slot.

"I knew you'd come," he said through bouts of mad giggling. "I knew you'd come down here."

"Son of bitch," Nguyen muttered, going for his radio. "This is Nguyen. Kuttler managed to damage his cell again."

"I knew I'd see you again," he continued to giggle. "I told you, didn't I, Oracle? I wasn't going to let anyone get in my way. Not Batman. Not that brat back in the tower. No Robins or Batgirls or Angels are going to save you when I get out." At this point he was pressing his lips to the slot he had made. "I'm going to kill you, Oracle! I may be stuck on the inside now, but someday I'm going to finish you off, once and for all!"

Barbara shared a stare with the madman as he continued to rant and rave and laugh before turning again towards the door at the end of the hallway and rolling onward. "DON'T YOU DARE IGNORE ME, BITCH!" Kuttler screamed. "I WILL END YOU!"

"You must have quite a history with that one," Sawyer said.

"Who the hell is Oracle?" Nguyen asked as he slipped out his keycard for the last of the doors.

"No one. Hasn't been anyone for a long time," Barbara said. At last the door at the end of the hallway was opened, leading to a small, sterile white room with a low ceiling. It housed a small bed, a flat, square table directly in front of it and a toilet attached to the bed's end, a bottle of hand sanitizer hooked into the wall. Above the bed and toilet there were a pair of brass bars. Sitting up and before the table was an aging man with snow white hair, a long beard and scars running all over his arms and upper face. A sly smile came across his face.

"Hello, Barbara," he said, addressing her as one does an old friend. "I've been so excited to see you again."

"I'll bet you don't get a lot of company down here," Barbara said, rolling towards the opposite end of the table. Nguyen and Sawyer followed a few steps behind, but the old man raised his hand, motioning they halt. "Stay back," he said. "My business is with her."

"The man who was responsible for nearly a hundred deaths in a single night is going to give me orders?" Sawyer asked. "I don't think so."

"No, do as he says," Barbara said. Nguyen double-took, though Sawyer just scowled, as if she had expected that reaction. "He won't cooperate if it isn't on his terms."

"The whole room is under twenty-four hour surveillance," Nguyen said. "You know full and well you aren't really alone."

"I like the illusion." Prometheus said. "She said it herself. I'm not going to take to either of you. I just want to talk to her."

Sawyer and Nguyen exchanged their own looks before the commissioner knelt down to speak on Barbara's level. "You've got your radio?"

"I do."

"If he so much as looks at you funny, you let me know."

"What am I going to do, poison her with the hand sanitizer? You switched me to non-toxic for a reason."

With looks of anger and bitterness, Sawyer and Nguyen both stepped out of the white room, leaving Barbara and Prometheus alone on opposite ends of the table. The old man grabbed ahold of the bars hanging over his bed and pulled himself up, facing Barbara as she said, "Someone is out in Gotham in a batsuit delivering martial law."

At this, Prometheus's smile grew all the wider. "And you think I had something to do with it?"

"Did you?"

"I don't know, Barbara. If I tell you I did you're going to start demanding information. If I tell you I didn't you're still going to demand answers. But if you don't know one way or another, then you're going to have to play with me." With that, he pressed a button on the underside of the table. The previously black top was suddenly lit, revealing itself to be a touchscreen. "Every year I go without an incident they install a new game on my table. Which would you like to play?"

Barbara's frustration began to show. "You really think this is the right time?"

"What better time will I ever have?" Prometheus asked. "I only get to play by myself."

Barbara sighed. In the years since she had discontinued her life's work, she had forgotten much of the bizarre dynamic exist between heroes and criminals. If she wanted answers, she'd have to cooperate. "… You know I'm a mother now. Do you have Candy Land?"

"I can already see through you," Prometheus boasted. "Asking for a game that minimizes metal effort in order to concentrate on the task at hand. No, I don't have Candy Land." Barbara had to raise an eyebrow. She hadn't actually asked for the reason he suggested at all. Her question had been genuine.

Her eyes scanned over _Go_ and _Othello_ before deciding it was best to be typical. "Chess, then."

"I was hoping you would be more creative. Mancala is right there." Prometheus said, pointing.

"I chose chess."

"Fine, fine, fine." Promethus said, pressing a finger to the table and brining up a digital playing field. "Do you play black or white?"

"What kind of question is that?" Barbara asked.

With a nod, Prometheus selected white and made the first move. "So, you want to talk about a killer, let's talk about a killer."


	9. Chapter 9

For about a year and a half after the Dark Knight's death, Gotham seemed stagnant. By no means any more stable than it ever had been, still crawling with criminals and costumed madmen, but no worse for wear than it had been before. The Robin, Red Robin and Nightwing costumes had all been redesigned to bear the bat symbol in their centers, though bore few modifications otherwise.

Gotham's criminal population all handled the news differently. Firefly seemed more aggressive, forming a gang of would-be robbers to hit banks all over the city, insisting that only the Batman was ever good enough to stop him. Sentiments quickly silenced by Red Robin. Bane had broken into Wayne Manor in the middle of one night, tearing through rooms and passageways, demanding Bruce Wayne come out of hiding. It had taken Robin and Angel both to stop him. The Riddler had taken a local television station hostage and held a gun to his own head, swearing to kill himself and make Batman guilty by association if he didn't drop his charade. At the four hour mark he pulled the trigger and revealed the gun to be a prop, discarding it and obtaining a new one from one of his cronies. After twenty-seven hours, eight prop guns and a short conversation in which Nightwing sadly but simply said, "He's not coming," Edward Nygma sighed and walked over to one of his gunmen Nightwing had knocked unconscious. Dick hadn't been fast enough, Riddler killed himself with a bullet to his own head.

At ten PM one night, three months after the announcement, Jason Todd had knocked on the door of Dick's apartment. Over demands of how he got his address, Jason simply asked, "Is it true?"

"… Yes."

"… I don't really feel like bothering you guys anymore." He was never seen by any of his mentor's associates again.

Stephanie's trips out in the Batgirl costume grew fewer are farther between with the birth of Oscar. He would sometimes be left overnight with Crystal, Sadie or, rarely, Barbara, but Stephanie had made it a point she wanted to be responsible and present in the life of her son. Tim took as many nights off as he could, but the struggle to maintain order was growing frail enough with the lack of bodies as was. Gotham had reached its typical equilibrium, but as with any, only needed a slight push in any direction to send it careening backwards.

…

"How did you find my base, all those years ago?" Barbara asked, selecting and moving a pawn from the left side two spaces forward.

"Roman Sionis had some very interesting comments regarding that gang war that nearly destroyed this city," Prometheus said. "I started putting talk out in the streets, trying to track you down. Even many of Gotham's finest had never heard of the one called Oracle. You existed far outside of their realm of expertise. Sionis had never heard of you either, but he had always wanted to know what you were doing up in that clock tower. His so called Batcave. He suggested you were Batman's secretary, or something of the sort." He chuckled when Barbara scowled at the thought and made his next move. "I put two and two together pretty quickly. I just needed a sufficient hacker to get steal of your information—"

"Hence Kuttler just now," Barbara said, contemplating whether to move a knight or a bishop.

"And to ensure you would lead me the rest of the way."

…

July fourteenth, nine years before, Barbara had stopped at a tiny liquor store halfway between her and Dick's apartments. She didn't trust him with alcohol, he was too quick to spring for the cheap stuff and too much a lightweight to notice quality when he tasted it. The two weren't dating at the time, both insisting keeping the peace was more significant than their past relationships. But there was lots of sex and alcohol on the rare evenings they took off.

It was only as Barbara pushed herself outside that an assailant came from seemingly nowhere behind her and overturned her wheelchair. Knocked onto the pavement and shouting in pain, Barbara looked up in time to see the attacker, a young man in a red hoodie grab ahold of her purse and run, turning down the street before her and shouting "Come get it, gimpy!"

A kind civilian exiting the store was swiftly at her side, offering a hand and helping her back into her chair. "You alright, ma'am?" he asked.

"He stole my purse," she said, more to herself than her helper.

"You want me to call the cops?" he asked.

The insult, however unfitting, was clouding Barbara's judgement. "No. I'll handle this myself." And she quickly gave chase.

Barbara caught sight of the thief in red and rushed after him. Every few steps he looked behind him, pushing faster and faster before turning and disappearing into a giant, damaged building. Barbara was stuck behind a string of cars crossing the street but made it to the front of the building and had to double take when she got a good look at it. The thief had retreated into the Gotham Clock Tower.

The inner workings of the clock tower had been destroyed in the events of Black Mask's gang war. The charred, broken shell of the tower was all that remained, little more than a devastated eyesore.

Barbara moved through the tower slowly, eyes darting every which way, searching for some sign of the thief. After a few minutes of rolling through the bleak remains of the tower, she concluded he may be on an upper floor. There would be no reaching him, since the elevator was destroyed by the explosions within. Barbara's phone had been in her purse, leaving her unable to call the police and report the crime. _Oh well_ , she thought to herself. _I'll call Tim when I'm at Dick's. He can make some time._

Once again there was a jerk from behind her, knocking Barbara out of her chair. She pushed herself up again, gritting her teeth and looking for her assailant. As she did, a light, giggling voice echoed through the tower's shell.

"We're coming to get you, Barbara."

Her heart skipped a beat as the speaker came into view, his walk hard and stiff. He wore a simple brown leather jacket, a pair of blue jeans and a patch over his left eye, messy red hair falling over his face. As he reached Barbara, he awkwardly knelt down, a metallic _clang_ giving away the braces on his legs. "Hello there, sister dearest."

Barbara, pushing through the pain of the fall, thrust herself off the ground and grabbed ahold of James Gordon Jr. by his jacket, pinning him on the ground and trapping him in a headlock.

"You should have never come back," Barbara said over James' gag. "Maybe I'll take out that other eye this time!"

It didn't take James more than a few seconds of struggling to force his mouth down to Barbara's arm and take a deep, bloody bite. The former superheroine held the lock as long as she could, but the pain forced her to relinquish it as James pushed back onto his feet. Another hand grabbed a handful of her hair from behind.

"Uh uh uh," a new voice mocked. "Can't let you do that, Oracle." This one's owner dressed in a simple white button up and glasses, a blonde head of hair slicked back atop his scalp.

With it clear none of her opponents taking her seriously, it was easy for Barbara to force her elbow back and knock him in the crotch. Noah Kuttler was quick to let out a shout of his own and clutched himself.

"Enough! You're like cats playing with your food!"

Barbara managed to turn her neck far enough to see the towering, armored figure approaching her. The same man now sitting across from her, studying the chess board.

With what seemed to be only the slightest effort, Prometheus grabbed ahold of Barbara by her neck, pulling her half-limp body off the ground and into what looked to be a supply closet. Prometheus forced Barbara's hand against an unusually smooth black section of the wall, tiny gears all around them springing to life and a small, square compartment revealing itself. With that, Prometheus held one of Barbara's eyes open and pushed it against the compartment as it ran a retinal scan. With another whirl, a slot containing two buttons opening at their side.

"Perfect. Gordon! Kuttler! Get over here."

The four crammed themselves into the closet as it descended deep into the ground, Barbara's struggle and yelling met with a smash into the wall, breaking open her forehead. After nearly ten-minutes of descent, the closet-turned-elevator opened into a long lost but still operational collection of over a hundred dormant computer towers. Barbara was tossed out lazily as Prometheus, James and Kuttler walked in, a salacious smile coming across the last of their faces.

"Oh, I've been dreaming of this," Kuttler said, rubbing his hands together and setting up a laptop at a small, dust covered table in the back of the room. "This is it, isn't it? Everything that made Oracle so mighty. I'm going to destroy your life's work, all from your own hard drives!"

"And when Oracle is undone, the legacy of The Batman is soon to follow." Prometheus said, stepping to Kuttler's side.

"A glorious new day is coming, Barbara," James said with a hiss. "A new Gotham will rise from the ashes. Just as soon as we've burned down the old one!"

…

[[Author's Note: I feel something of a need to apologize for the overabundance of flashbacks breaking into the narrative at this point. I know many readers may well find this distracting and want the focus to be on the "Now" of the story. To those readers I am especially sorry and can say this will be over with in a chapter or two and that these are as intrusive as they will get. I just feel that due to the deep planning that went into the road to this story, it needed some elaboration. I'm already trying very hard to abridge the events that got us to the story proper. I hope this isn't dissuading any reading and I hope these flashback sequences are at least entertaining and fulfilling. When this is done with the story proper will resume and more of my overabundance of subplots will be addressed.

I didn't exactly plan this story the best. I hope you can forgive me for that.]]


	10. Chapter 10

For the next two months, the hunt for Oracle became the Bat Family's highest priority. The July disappearance forced everyone, even Stephanie, out constantly, hunting for any sign of their vanished informant.

"I owe you so much for always helping me like this," Stephanie told Sadie as she handed the sleeping Oscar over to her for the night. "If it wasn't for Babs being gone, I wouldn't even ask."

"I know how it is," Sadie said, cradling her small to-be nephew. "Cassie doesn't come home until afternoon sometimes… I don't know Barbara as well as I know you and Tim, but I know she's important, to all of you."

"It still just means a lot," Stephanie said as she followed Sadie into her bedroom. Oscar was laid down in a pillow and blanket covered playpen at the foot of the bed that served as his crib when he stayed with Sadie and Cassandra. "It's funny, you know? I used to be the normal one in this family."

"The normal one?" Sadie said, chuckling.

"Yeah. I mean, I was on the track team back in middle and high school and knew enough about sewing to Frankenstein my old costume together, but that's about it. When you have to compare that to circus performer Dick, computer hacker Barbara and bred to kick butt Cassandra, I've always been pretty boring."

"Hey, I'm not even going out in costume. I don't think it's fair to count me in that anyway," Sadie said.

"As planet Earth's foremost authority on what it is to not be considered part of the Batman Family, you most definitely are. You fulfill a role I can't ask anyone else for. You're marrying my best friend, who is also my sister-in-law, and I can count on you to be centered even when I can't be. You're as much a part of this team as anyone."

Sadie just laughed and shook her head. "Think I'm finally seeing what it is that made Cassie crush on you."

At this Stephanie had to double-take, her cheeks going beet red. "Wait, what? She… she told you about that?"

"Of course she told me. I never said it because I'm not worried." Sadie slapped Stephanie across the back and laughed a little more. "You're not a threat to me, Steph. If Cassandra was able to understand people at all by looking at them, she'd be able to tell 'straight' is written over every inch of your face."

"Oh… is that it?"

"And we're friends," Sadie said. "Enough about that. You have a job to do."

…

"I don't even know what she does. In a state like hers, she should have been out of the action years ago."

"Then she would be home. Doing nothing. There is nothing more she hates."

"It's not about likes and dislikes. We're at war in this city, and injured soldiers just lead to more casualties."

Since the death of Bruce, Damian's nights were usually spend beside either Dick or Cassandra. Attempts with Tim and Stephanie had been shaky at best, accompanied by the conclusion only a warrior or communicator strong enough to earn his respect could temper his inner-turmoil.

For her part, Cassandra could usually contend with Damian pretty well. She didn't always feel a need to respond or rebuke his many, often outrageous claims across the night. He respected her shouts of, "Stop!" when necessary. And, perhaps most importantly, she wanted to see him redeemed, as she had been. "Barbara knew the risks, Damian. She gave to us, it is right we do the same."

"Really would have liked to know what you were like before you started speaking in religious proverbs."

Indeed, Cassandra had been on her knees, praying for protection and for Barbara's safe return, as she always did before the night really began. She ignored this statement as she completed a Hail Mary, rose and made a sign of the cross. "Barbara lost her legs before I met her. Then she lost the costume, her ability to fight, she told me she even lost her faith in God. She has never gotten any of those back. But she still does everything she is able. She fights in ways I do not understand, and makes our work possible. Barbara gives us her everything. Faith or no faith, she does God's work."

"I just think we were asking for something like this to happen when we—ow!" Cassandra remained one of the few who could successfully plant a slap on the back of Damian's head. He glared at her, but offered no further objections. Cassandra did not like that this was how many of their conversations ended, but she would not argue with results.

…

As the sun was rising Red Robin made his usual point to track down wherever Nightwing had ended his ventures for the evening. Thankfully, he wasn't more than a few blocks away, a still blip on the tiny radar mounted to his wrist. He was standing with his arms crossed, glaring down at the police as they pulled a few barely conscious criminals out of the Gotham Merchant's Bank.

"Couldn't get a good grip on who they were working for," Dick said. "And no one knew anything about Barbara, unless their boss sprung for the kind of criminals that piss themselves before answering any questions honestly."

"We're going to find her," Tim said. "We have to. Stephanie was gone for over a year before we saw anything more of her. No one's ever really gone from Gotham."

"Bruce was a bad reminder though," Dick said. "That under it all, we really are just human. That anything could have happened to her."

"We're not going to stop until we find her, no matter what," Tim said, laying a hand on his brother's shoulder. "This isn't your fault, Dick, and we're going to fix it, all of us, together."

"I got a call from the ex-commissioner last night. Jim wants to know where his daughter is, and I just have to keep telling him I don't know… He's dropped all pretense since he retired. He shouted at me to put on my damn tights and keep looking."

"He knows?"

"He's known about me for years, we were both just fooling ourselves thinking otherwise. Said I had duties I had to fulfill if I ever really wanted to make a life with his daughter."

"I told you it isn't your fault," Tim said. "If Barbara was just a random casualty, we'd know about it by now. There would have been a report in, we'd have found her. Wherever she is, she's alive. She has to be."

"… I'm going my best to keep telling myself that," Dick said. "She has to be. She has to be. She has to be."

…

The two had met only half a mile from the clock tower, Barbara trapped in her own secret bunker. Over the ensuing weeks she had been kept from her wheelchair, fed just enough nutrition to sustain herself and used as a glorified keycard for access in and out of the hidden basement. Prometheus's personal appearances were few and far between. Though he had warned James and Kuttler against tormenting her, lest they drive her to insanity and she become useless against a particularly stubborn firewall, the two would still throw her an occasional kick and mouth of spit.

It still wasn't clear what their grand plan was, Barbara was only able to catch snippets of it. From her old hard drives they had hacked their way into the defunct computer in the Batcave, gaining access to everything from the material list for Bat suits to the identities of the internal Bat Family. Prometheus, in his rare appearances, would announce that he had found new investors and allies for their cause. But investors for what? Still more talk came of body guards, home addresses and shipping wait-times, but what was the purpose of it all? Something about a load of fear toxin from Johnathan Crane came up, one could only expect the worst from that.

Through all of this, no matter what opposition they gave her, Barbara refused to cooperate. Their operation had lost three days trying to crack a password she had refused to give them, no matter how Prometheus had briefly let up on his words against torture. By now Barbara was looking painfully thinner, bruises and dried blood running over her face. She was weak and tired, but her will would not be broken.

"The Joker broke my spine, ripped my clothes off and used me as an object to torture Dad," Barbara spat at James amongst one of his demands. "You don't scare me James. You're just a punk kid, just like you were back when I'd dip your hands in warm water while you were asleep."

At last, however, the night came. Prometheus practically thrust himself through the elevator. "Preparations are finally complete. As soon as the operation is underway you two can have the girl, our need for her will be finished."

"Are you finally going to do your villainous monologue and tell me what this was all for?" Barbara asked ruefully. She wasn't sure if Prometheus's ego would be one that indulged her, she wasn't even sure she could make a difference if she did know. But she had to try.

"Well, the rest of the city will know in a few short hours anyway, perhaps it is the least that I owe you," Prometheus mocked. "Tell me then, Ms. Gordon, are you familiar with my namesake?"

"Prometheus was a Greek… I don't know, man? God? Character. A Greek character, known for stealing fire from the gods and giving it away to mankind."

"That's right," Prometheus said, impressed. "Have you ever wondered, 'Why Prometheus,' Barbara? Why the man whose parents were gunned down by police officers borrowed his title from a fire-stealing Titan? It's because I don't believe in the authority of gods, or men acting like gods, for that matter." At this point he knelt down, Barbara almost sure she could see his eyes meet her through his helmet. "I have stolen from the god of Gotham, and I'm going to distribute his fire amongst its children. As we speak, two hundred military grade Bat suits are being distributed by private drones all over this city. Each one powerful enough to sustain massive bullet fire, each one equipped with all the guns and flamethrowers Batman himself would never accept, and each one laced with Johnathan Crane's personal brew.

Barbara's eyes went wide and her mouth went dry. "Oh my God…"

"Two hundred individuals all over this city are about to lose their minds, pull on your old mentor's cape and cowl, and try and slaughter all the vile monstrosities that just appeared before their eyes." Prometheus stood, letting out a small but extremely satisfied laugh. "I have given fire to the common man. Now it's just a question of how long it will take him to use it and burn down everything in sight."


	11. Chapter 11

The first call reached the Gotham City Police Department at nine PM. A horrified woman in the suburbs screaming that her husband had opened some unmarked package, began shouting in horror and ran off, garbed in what looked to be a Batman costume. Almost instantly thereafter the phones began ringing off their hooks. Mothers, fathers, bachelors down the hall, teenagers, reports of all sorts describing the same thing- shouting individuals with lethal force in Batman suits, attacking anything in their sights.

Not fifteen minutes after the first call, with the station's highest ranking officer's already dispatched across the city, a raving woman dressed in one of the suits came running through the station's front door. Secretaries were ducking under the bulletproof glass that lined the entryway as shots were fired. Everywhere the terrified woman garbed in black looked, she saw destruction and decay. The walls stared at her, mouths forming through cracks in the plaster, daring her to strike them down. The secretaries held their hands firmly over their heads until the bullet fire seemed to cease. One of them peered up to see Nightwing, shaking with what could have been fear or anger, the screaming woman in the costume unconscious at his feet. "Everyone alright back there?" He asked, rapping at the bulletproof windows. When the situation seemed neutralized, he brought a hand to the piece in his ear. "Nightwing reporting… yes… I know. It's absolutely insane out here. Any word on some backup?"

"Any Leaguers who are on earth and within five states are headed our way," Red Robin said, he himself struggling for breath after a recent confrontation. "Got ahold of a few Titans too-" Before Red Robin could finish the thought, Nightwing could hear a fresh round of fire and screaming from his side. "God damnit! How many of them are there? Where the hell are they coming from?!"

Red Robin descended from the roof he had used to catch his breath, getting an eyeful of a pair of the would-be Batmen, each emerging from apartment buildings on opposite sides of the street. Amongst their seemingly endless, wonton gunfire at any civilian, animal or car caught in their periphery, Red Robin observed the way they each turned to face one another before rushing into combat. One was firing from a wrist-mounted machine gun, the other with a jet of flames blasting from each hand. In their nearly drunken stupor their attacks fanned out to the honking, terrified drivers, some of whom threw open their doors and ran while others ducked into their back seats.

Clutching his staff, tasting the blood welling up in his mouth, Red Robin jumped from the rooftop towards the one nearest to him with the machine gun. A pair of kicks to the back of his knees staggered him and a few strikes with his staff forced him to unconsciousness. Red Robin looked up to see the jets of flame approaching him as the other wailed in unintelligible babble. Sweat pouring down his face, he stood up to face him before the flame on the left was dispersed in a blast of coolant. This one searched for whoever had just struck him with a freeze grenade as another disabled the flamethrower on his right, Angel and Robin meeting on each of his sides and beating him out with a few strikes.

"They're not trained," Robin said, trying to catch his breath. "I think they're just civilians… but there's so damn many of them. Where did they even come from?"

"Doesn't matter," Angel said. "We can't stop now. No matter how many there are."

"Drake, I can't believe I'm saying this, but if the League can't get out here fast enough, we could seriously use a hand from your wife."

In reality, just as Damian had expressed that sentiment, Stephanie stood in her mother's house, exchanging reluctant words of her own.

"You told me you threw that suit out months ago," Crystal said. "You told me after the baby you were going to stop all this."

"I know I did, Mom," Stephanie said, looking shamefaced at the floor as she tried to settle the crying Oscar in her arms. "I tried Mom… I _am_ trying!"

"I would have thought you of all people wanted better for your son than your father gave you."

"I'm not like Dad!" Stephanie said, her shame instantly snapping to anger. "Dad was a criminal, Dad put people's lives in danger—"

"And he left you asking me when he was coming home!" Crystal said. "He left us both wondering if he was _ever_ coming home. When you became a parent, a real parent this time, you were supposed to take on new responsibilities."

"This time?" Stephane demanded. "Don't you dare bring that kid from when I was a teenager into this! I was a scared, stupid kid myself and I did what you didn't think I could. I gave her a better life. In the hardest choice I've ever made, I did the right thing."

"… If you're going out, just give him to me," Crystal said with a sigh. "You're a woman now, I can't stop you… your husband's already out there, isn't he?"

"Of course he is."

"If you two screw up, you're leaving your son an orphan," Crystal said. "I'm telling you all this because I love you, Stephanie, and I love him." Being in the arms of his grandmother seemed to calm Oscar a bit.

"Mom… I'll swear on anything you want me to that I'll stop," Stephanie said. "This is bad. I got a call from Tim an hour ago, the entire inner-city is going to hell faster than any of them can stop it. They need all the help they can get."

Crystal motioned over her shoulder at the staircase. "Go to your bedroom and get changed then." Stephanie ran as fast as she could, pulling the pack off her back and pulling out her uniform. To Oscar, Crystal quietly said, "Your mother is the stupidest, bravest girl I've ever known in my life."

The city had, at this point, dissolved into a warzone. Screeching men and women burst out from apartments, houses and places of business. For the first two hours the masked vigilantes who frequented Gotham struggled to contain the growing insanity. More distant employees once under Batman's tutelage or in his aid, including Batwoman, Huntress and Katana made rare appearances to try and combat the growing threat. Only just after the second hour mark, as Batgirl and Nightwing, encountering one another by chance starring down the barrel of a 45, that a blast of heat vision melted the weapon before it could be fired. In a blur of red and blue the attacker was put to the ground, the cowl torn from his head before his face met the concrete.

"You two alright?"

"Your timing's about perfect there, Supes," Nightwing said with a sigh of relief. "I seriously hope none of these guys are carrying kryptonite."

"Who else is coming?" Batgirl asked. "We need all the help we can get."

"We're spread thin right now," Superman said. "Diana is dealing with a crisis in Olympus, Kyle and the rest of the Lanerns have business on Oa, Wally is dealing with a temporary depowerment... J'onn wanted me to report he's looked inside a few of their minds. They've all been drugged, said it looked like a strain of Scarecrow's fear toxin was soaking the inside of the costumes."

"Great, just great," Nightwing said. "We've been fighting these guys for hours and aren't any closer to a solution. There's got to be some kind of answer. Someone has to know something we don't."

Amongst the carnage covering the streets, there remained the two whose focus remained on only one. Barbara sat, strapped to her wheelchair, eyes shifting between Kuttler and James as the two bickered over how she should face her demise. The three stood in the highest room of the devastated clock tower, which had once served as Oracle's base.

"I'm telling you, Gordon, it's all about making a statement," Kuttler said, a rope in his hands. "We hang her from her own hideout. We say we've taken everything away!"

"It's too elaborate," James said. "Too much work. We can just shove the chair off the tower! She'll look like spaghetti sauce by the time she hits the ground, that's symbolic enough."

Ever since The Joker had put a bullet through her spine, Barbara fought to never show a sign of weakness when confronted by an enemy. Dick had said years of bottling up fear and hesitation had made her colder and more reserved, but even in this crisis, she gave them nothing. Except for the comment, "Why don't you fight over it?"

Any occasion the two gave her Barbara had attempted to create animosity between them. And only now, standing over an attempt on her life, did it seem to be working. "Shut up," Kuttler snapped. "We're not playing this game."

"Why not?" James asked. "Because I'd beat you?"

Noah Kuttler and James Gordon Jr. represented two very different, but easily manipulated types of criminals. Kuttler had always obsessed over how any action and any kill would affect his reputation, while her brother was always dedicated to just causing as much chaos as possible. Were it not for Barbara itself, the two would never have had a reason to interact. That was what she needed to utilize.

"You really should cut your losses on this one, Noah," Barbara said. "You're a cyber thief, James is a Gordon. People with that last name tend to beat you every time."

"I said shut up!" Kuttler said, thrusting the rope over her neck and pulling her backwards. Barbara gagged, but only glared at him otherwise. As he did, James punched him in the mouth.

"I said no rope!" James shouted. "It's too merciful! I've been waiting much too long for this, I want her to be nothing but red pavement!"

"Watch yourself, cyclops," Kuttler said, standing straight again. "She's just an annoyance to you… but she has spent years ruining me!"

Barbara managed to shut her eyes and breathe a sigh of relief as the calm the two shared was finally shattered. She could hear flesh meeting flesh as two of her greatest enemies began fighting over the right to kill her. She knew, in all likelihood, James was going to win. And may well do it quickly. There was no guarantee she could save herself, but now there was at least a chance.

If Batman had taught her anything over the years, it had been how to always prepare for the worst possible scenario. She had always known there was a small chance someone could one day break into the old clock tower and retrieve the data kept in those old hard drives. A backup generator had been installed to quietly return power to a single machine contained within once the hard drives returned to life, awaiting a vocal command. She could have said it at any point, but no one would have had a way into her secret bunker. It had taken all her time, but she convinced James and Kuttler they had to end it in her office. Not through conventional arguments, but expressing how much either would have to do to prove their worth in killing her. That simply slitting her throat amongst the Batman-suited anarchy wasn't good enough.

Maybe they'd still kill her. Maybe this wouldn't help at all. But if a chance was presented, it had to be taken.

"Joke's on you!"  
With the password accepted there came a rumble from the top of the clock tower, a final hidden panel opening upon the roof and firing a giant Bat-symbol onto the clouds above. From all over the city this drew the attention of her allies.

"What the hell?" Red Robin said, looking to Angel and Robin before activating his earpiece. "Nightwing, you see that?"

"I'm just a block from it," he said. "It's… holy crap, it's the clock tower! It's gotta be Barbara!"

Batgirl went to grab ahold of his shoulder but he jumped off the roof before she could. "Wait!" She called. "It might be a trap!" But Nightwing would not be deterred, if there was a chance Barbara was there, he had to take it.

Peering up from the destroyed face of the tower, Kuttler stared at the signal in horror before resuming his battle with James with renewed fervor. "You idiot! You let her slip through our fingertips!"

As he shouted and fought, Barbara went to work trying to pull apart the ropes James had used to tie her hands to the chair. "You always were a crappy scout," she said under her breath.

"You're wasting your time!" James shouted. "The signal's already up, if we're going to kill her we have to do it—"

Kuttler could stand no more as Barbara heard the new round of attacks. " _We're_ not doing anything! You went and ruined everything, I'm killing the Oracle!"

Barbara managed to free her right hand. Having both would make freeing her left easier, but even then, where was she supposed to go? She was still trapped atop the clock tower. She managed to maneuver around to see Kuttler desperately struggling to force a knife from James' hand, bending the arm with all his might until James released it.

In the space of a few seconds, Kuttler grabbed the knife off the floor, jumped at James and buried it between his eyes with a vertical thrust. James was screaming in agony as he fell to the floor, convulsing as he held the wound, letting out shrieks and blubbers from his ruined state. Kuttler stood up straight, looking at his work for a moment before turning, rushing and tackling Barbara, forcing her from her chair and against the remains of the face of the clock tower.

"I could never beat a Gordon, huh?" Kuttler said. "I could have never beaten you, that's what you said, isn't it bitch? Well I'm about to go two for two!"

For perhaps just a moment, Barbara's brave façade faded. Maybe the smallest twinge of true, unbridled terror crossed her face. But the moment later, she spat at Kuttler's glasses and said, "See you in hell."

With the force of all his adrenaline, Kuttler threw her out the open face of the tower. He was done with symbols, done with proof. All that mattered was she would die. So important was this that he didn't even notice the _clank_ of Nightwing's grappling hook as it took ahold of the clock tower.

Nightwing ascended the tower in a blur of motion, Barbara safely held in one of his arms as he faced Kuttler, exhausted eyes meeting horrified ones.

"I don't know who you're working for," Nightwing said. "But I hope he's going to pay to have your glasses replaced." Kuttler was brought down with a single punch, leaving Barbara and Nightwing a moment to fall into one another. "You had me so worried, Babs."

"I called out to you all as soon as I could," she said. "I know you need to get back out there. I know it's bad—"

"Oh, but if he goes, he'll have no chance to settle the score with me."

Both of the heroes looked to the staircase leading to the tower's face as Prometheus, confident as ever, came into view. Nightwing seemed more annoyed than impressed with this revelation. "Oh you've got to be kidding me. This was you? What are you even doing here? You're the Justice League's problem."

"I am a problem to any who would declare themselves gods in my presence," Prometheus said, adjusting one of his gloves and clenching his fists. "The lord of Gotham has been slain, but his demigods still try to maintain his pathetic sense of order. Demigods like you, Richard Grayson."

Nightwing drew his two escrima sticks, triggering the tasers that were attached to each end. "Sorry I can't get you out of here fast enough, Babs. But tall, armored and purple here just mentioned my secret identity."

Prometheus met Nightwing in the center of the tower, but in spite of a thrust from the sticks and the subsequent burst of electricity, Prometheus only laughed. "Wields a pair of escrima sticks, tipped with electrical wiring." Nightwing attempted to jump to his side, but was caught by his throat halfway through his dodge. "Child circus performer. Skilled and acrobatic." And with that, he thrust Nightwing to the floor, pinning him against the ground as a board below shattered into splinters. "Feels he alone carries Batman's greatest legacy on his shoulders. Fears being a disappointment… and for good reason, I should say."

Prometheus stood up as he was struck by a set of batarangs, turning to face the freshly arrived cavalry in the form of Red Robin, Batgirl, Angel and Robin.

"Step off of him," Robin said. "You don't want to deal with me. I was trained—"

"Trained by the League of Assassins, yes indeed," Prometheus said, tossing Nightwing aside. "Grandson of the legendary Ra's al Ghul. Impeccable warrior, by all accounts—" Robin too rushed at him, a katana drawn from his back. Prometheus produced his bladelike nightstick and clashed with him, leaning in close to continue his analysis. "Yet fears rejection from every corner of his life. Fears his mother's disapproval for finding him too soft, fears his father's contempt for being too fierce." Prometheus broken the clash and smacked Robin across the back of his head, flooring him. "Above all else, a child, desperately seeking approval."

There was no holding back on numbers from there. Batgirl and Red Robin both set upon him with their staffs, Angel coming from the opposite side with her dulled katana. Prometheus continued to dance around them all, his armor accepting any impact from their blows before they met his nightstick or fists.

"Timothy Drake, the Red Robin. Joined Batman's crusade as a child, under the impression he saved the knight's life, now struggling to understand his place years later." Prometheus managed to grab Tim by the back of the head and thrust his face into his armored knee. "Unaware he has no place anymore."

"Stephanie Brown, the Batgirl. Grew up with a lowly criminal of a father. Always looked at Batman as a surrogate, but his apathy always left her struggling to know she was good enough." Catching her staff as it approached his face, Prometheus ripped it from her hands, driving it first into her gut and then into her face. "And no wonder. The bat never had time for weaklings."

"Cassandra Cain, the Angel of the Bat. Monstrous father, fears her own incredible power. Struggling to find purpose and comfort through Catholicism. Lesbian-leaning bisexual." In spite of managing to dodge out more of his blows than the rest, Prometheus triggered a mechanism in his nightstick, forcing an electric current through it and, just after, Angel's blade, knocking her to the ground, shuddering against the blast of lightning running through her body. "I suppose you can't all be disappointments to the Batman. No, you are a disappointment to a greater, celestial father."

Prometheus was well aware his completely systematic beatdown of the family came only from their exhaustion fighting the forces in the Batsuits, but it didn't matter. He could see it well enough, he was crushing their morale and their bodies. Still, the five didn't surrender, pushing back to their feet as fast as they were able only for Prometheus to overwhelm them again.

As her awareness of the fight slowly washed over, Barbara realized she could not sit idly by on the floor and do nothing. The five were sacrificing their lives trying to defeat the madman, she had to do whatever she could to help them. She had seen Prometheus equip his armor before, she knew its structure. "Go for his back!" She shouted. "His armor can be removed from his back!"

"Be quiet, girl!" Prometheus said, pulling a pistol from his belt and point it in her direction. Before he could succeed where his minions had failed, Nightwing tackled him from the side, knocking the gun from his hand as it rolled across the floor, stopping a few feet from Barbara.

With renewed energy the five attacked Prometheus, Red Robin managing to tear off his cape and shouting, "I can see a crank!" before Prometheus turned and kicked him in the gut.

Blades and staffs and batarangs continued to strike Prometheus, but the fact remained the gathered company was simply too tired to properly combat him, only further aggravated with the taunt, "You came here to stop me, when you could have been saving all those poor sheep in the suits. You truly have failed your mentor!"

With this, he turned to Barbara. "And then there's you, of course. Barbara Gordon, the Oracle. Batman's most trusted informant. His perfect tool, his—"

To Prometheus's detriment, the others had observed his routine of rattling off personal flaws and fears one time too many. With a simultaneously jump Red Robin and Nightwing managed to bring him to the ground, Red Robin shouting, "Hurry up! Someone get the crank!"

Batgirl was the closest, and she swiftly turned it in place, compressing the pieces that held together Prometheus's chest plate. Almost immediately afterwards, the villain threw the former Robins from his back and knocked Batgirl down with a backhanded strike. "Foolishness!" he said, a much thinner layer of black now all that was covering his chest and back. "You think it makes a difference?"

Angel was the first to attempt a new attack, thrusting her fingers into his pectorals with a series of pressure point strikes. Though Prometheus showed far more pain than before, he pushed through and set upon her with another strike from his nightstick. Robin threw a few punches of his own, even penetrating the layer and entering his skin with a stab from a batarang, but Promethus remained mostly unaffected.

Strike after strike made contact, but the madman simply would not slow. He was beaten, battered, tripped, struck, even momentarily paralyzed, but nothing seemed to be working. Whether it was his fists or his nightstick, all opposition ultimately ended with Prometheus overwhelming any opponents who dared approach him.

"I only wish you could join us, Miss Gordon!" Prometheus said, not even turning to face her. "It is almost a shame one as impressive as you can't fight!"

He was wrong. She could fight. In fact, there was practically a war going on inside her head.

"Can't protect the ones you hold dear."

He was wrong. She could protect them.

By now the five laid bloodied and beaten, all struggling to even stand. Still without taking a glance over his shoulder, Prometheus drew a second pistol from its holster. "Tell me something then, Barbara. Who would you miss the most? Little Batgirl, who fought so hard to take your mantle? The Angel who you took in and love almost as if she was your child? Or perhaps the man whose advances you rejected. The one who should be—"

There came a blast of pistol fire.

Prometheus was not the one responsible.

In a roar of absolute agony Prometheus fell to the ground, fingers digging deep into the wood of the tower as he tried to push back up. To his horror, no matter how he pushed, he could not. "Wha- What?" He demanded amongst the growing gravel of pain. "I- I- I can't feel my legs!"

"Did you think I was stupid enough to keep a file on myself?" Barbara asked, looking down at the ground. "Did you think I was just some worthless paraplegic you didn't need to even think about…? Barbara Gordon, the Oracle. Daughter of police commissioner James Gordon. Taught how to wield a firearm by her ever-protective father from childhood. Is farsighted, so otherwise able to distinguish shapes from a long distance without glasses." She tossed the gun aside. "Gotham's leading expert on what you have to do to someone's Goddamn spine to make sure they never walk again."

After all of the madness of the night, Nightwing was still unsure it was all over when he struggled to his feet and got a good look at the sobbing Barbara. At last, something had stripped her of her more stoic hero demeanor. In spite of the hard fought victory, she had betrayed one of the most precious principles of her friend and mentor. All she could do was cry.

…

"Checkmate. And that makes two out of three," Barbara said, sitting back in her wheelchair and staring at her equally handicapped opponent. "You have something to tell me yet?"

The long defeated Prometheus shrugged as he mimicked her position. "You're asking the man whose greatest purpose is anarchy if he had anything to do with a man committing vigilante justice. No, Barbara. I'm sorry to waste your time, but I don't know anything about this." Barbara's position changed so she could better glare at him from across the table. "… But it isn't as if all those suits and all that data just disappeared. If your opponent out there recognized Cassandra, he might have had possession of my old helmet."

"You wouldn't have any idea who claimed your things, would you?"

"Of course not."

"You do realize if you're lying, you're letting a new god steal Gotham's fire, don't you?"

"That's precisely why I have no reason to lie to you, Barbara," Prometheus said. "I want him defeated as well. Especially if it's my technology he's stolen."

The two shared a few more carefully chosen words before Prometheus pulled himself back into his bed and Barbara rolled out of his sanctum.

"You were certainly in there long enough," Sawyer said. "Any leads?"

"We've taken… Maybe half a step forward."

…

[Author's note: I hope, at a later time, to extend the battle against the civilians in Batsuits against the family, the Justice League and the Titans into a short story called "The Road to Nowhere" later down the line. But for now, my focus remains on this story. Especially now that we're finally back to the present for a little while.]


	12. Chapter 12

A week after her trip to Metropolis, Stephanie was hard at work in her kitchen alongside Barbara, assembling lasagnas. "Which one of these is supposed to be the meatless one again?" Barbara asked.

"Crap, I don't know… the one on the left, I think? Lent is a pain."

"How did we get outnumbered?" Barbara asked as Stephanie spooned hot tomatoes and lentils onto a layer of pasta. "The closest thing we used to have to a devout member back in the day was a crazed French übermensch."

"It's all Cassie's fault, at least the not eating meat on Fridays part," Stephanie said, then attending to a pot of minced beef and sausage. "Cassie discovers Catholicism. Then Tim rediscovers Catholicism. Then we have kids and we end up raising them the same way. I try and go along with it so the kids don't feel weird, but I've done my own thing a few times now. One time we were picking up some fast food and Robin about lost it when I unwrapped my cheeseburger and she was stuck with some fish-wich."

"Sounds about right," Barbara said, chuckling and shaking her head. "How were things with your dad?"

"Standard. Completely standard. I let me guard down a little, I start thinking it might all go well, and then he says something about neo-Nazis or being in the Suicide Squad or something. I think I really want to be able to trust him again, but I still just don't know if I can. He's done too many insane things with his life. Bad insane. Not like us, insane."

"… Speaking of which, Steph, I had something I've been meaning to give you." Barbara rolled over to Stephanie's kitchen table and began rooting through her laptop bag. "I wanted to figure out the right time to give it to you… but I guess I just figured the sooner the better, all things considered." In her hands was a manila folder.

"What is it Babs?" Stephanie asked, stepping away from the lasagnas as Barbara let out of heavy exhale.

"I need to preface this a little… I don't even know if you'll want this information. If you don't, it doesn't matter to me. You can just disregard it. Dick said you might not want it to begin with and maybe he's right, but I think that should be your decision."

"Babs? You're starting to creep me out here."

"You know I still do some work for the police, right? Hack a system when it needs hacking, trace back illicit purchases when they need to be backtracked, that kind of stuff?"

"Right, right."

"I've used some of my tech for some more personal reasons before." With that, Barbara opened the folder, revealing a photo of a thirteen year old girl with bright blond hair and a pair of butterfly-styled glasses. "Do you have any idea who this is?"

Stephanie leaned in to get a closer look. "Um, I don't think so."

"Her name is Jodie Miller. She lives in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. She was adopted from Gotham Central hospital thirteen years ago, immediately after she was born."

As the words slipped past her lips, Barbara could see Stephanie begin to tremble, her pupils dilating as the realization struck her. "Oh my God."

Barbara turned to the next image, depicting her holding a piece of cardboard that had been written on with black marker. The message was a simple statement regarding where she had been born, the date, the year and to share the photo. "She's looking for you, if you have any interest in finding her."

"… I'll be right back," Stephanie said. She went to a role of paper towels next to the oven, ripping one off and dabbing her eyes. "I didn't think I'd ever really have to think about this."

"Dick made some good points when we talked about it. If I'm just really stressing you out, I'm sorry," Barbara said. "I don't even know if this is something you've thought much about—"

"Are you kidding?" Stephanie said. "I've thought about it all the time. I just didn't ever think I'd actually find this out… I… I have to find her."

Barbara leaned back, a smile coming across her face. "I figured that would be your answer."

Laughing and fighting tears at the same time, Stephanie asked, "Any chance I could hug you, you magnificent mastermind you?"

"I can abide that."

After the short embrace and a long sigh, Stephanie stepped back over to her lasagnas. "You found my long-lost daughter, Tim actually had it in him to try and put Dick back in his life, it's like our wonderfully dysfunctional family is finally piecing itself back together."

"Your son and my daughter sought vigilante justice on the playground the other day, less we forget about that," Barbara said. "And we're still out a Damian. Brat never answers his phone."

Still laughing, Stephanie just shook her head. "I can take the good with the bad right now… what even happened between Dick and Tim? I've asked Tim plenty of times and he's never really answered me. One day they're the brothers Robin and nothing could have separated them. The next they just seemed to hate one another."

From Stephanie's position tending to dinner, Barbara was relieved she couldn't see the worried look that briefly overtook her face. "If Dick never told me and Tim never told you, I suppose neither of us are ever going to know."

…

True to their hopes, the family was united in the Drake household for the first time in years. After the five along with Sadie had shouted and hollered for Robin and Sarah in their second-grade soccer league and Oscar with the fifth graders. Though the words between Dick and Tim seemed forced, their wives seemed sure they were enjoying one another's company. As they ate and drank that night, it was as if a calm had fallen upon them.

"So then Robin tells me, again, that the stupid beard makes me look like a supervillain," Tim said.

"Tim Babyfaced Drake couldn't look like a supervillain if he was wearing an unnecessary eyepatch and had a mechanical hand," Dick said with a laugh.

"You hear what your Uncle says, Robin?" Tim asked. "Your dad is not now, nor will he ever be, a bad guy."

"You're too boring to be a super bad guy anyway." As Robin said it, Sadie laughed so hard she nearly choked on her wine, Cassandra going in to slap her on the back a few times.

"I'm fine! I'm fine!" She insisted. "Wow Tim, you really let your girl get a mouth on her."

"Mom would bump me with her chair if I ever called her boring," Sarah said.

"Only because lying is strictly forbidden in our house." This time it was Cassandra who choked up halfway through her drink.

"I am glad to see everyone," she began, still hacking and wiping her mouth with a napkin. "But would enjoy it more if talking to you all was not so dangerous."

More laughing was had, more drinks were poured and more lasagna was eaten. When the meal came to an end, every glass was refilled, be it with wine or grape juice, as Tim raised his in a toast.

"To my brother, whom I have spent too long away from, and to family, without whom I'd just be a very tired man who apparently looks like a supervillain."

As the glasses came together and talking resumed, two figures, dressed in enough black to serve as camouflage, looked down from a nearby hill, a set of binoculars staring directly into the dining room. The taller of the two passed the goggles off to his companion. His dark brown hair was trimmed short and he wore a single-piece bodysuit, decorations of a deep gold color adorning his collar. His hand was to a headset, "Yes sir, it's definitely them, exactly as the reports said."

His companion returned the binoculars to his hands. Her own short head of hair was slicked back, shades of blue running through it. She dressed in a leather jacket and bore a number of piercings in her nose and lips. "You'd think he'd have moved by now. Security's gotta be masterful at that place after what happened… I mean, it'd have to be, right? Drake's supposed to be one of the smart ones."

"Is it time yet to engage them?" The taller one asked.

"No. Not yet. They have seen our purpose but they must embrace our motives. We must meet them on even ground, if they are ever to see it my way. They are family to me. To us. Keep your eyes tight on them, Nighthawk. If all goes well, we will not need to force them to join our crusade. After all, they joined me once, didn't they?"


	13. Chapter 13

That Friday was the last before Holy Week, and Cassandra was seated alongside the Drakes following Sunday. She did not always attend mass at the same time as Tim's family, but had said she wanted to be with them when they were together Friday night. "It is an important time of year. It would be good to spend it with you."

For the umpteenth time after services Robin had asked Cassandra, "How come Aunt Sadie never comes to church with you?"

"What have I told you about mentioning her here?" Tim asked. "Don't ask that, Robin. You'll get Aunt Cassie in trouble."

"But I don't understand. Why can't—"

"I'll tell you again later, Robin," Cassandra said, laying a hand on her back and rubbing a little. "It's okay. I can tell you. This just is not the place."

Amongst the hustle and bustle of Saint Michael's Cathedral, the five of them were given little attention, Stephanie pulling Oscar back whenever it neared a move to disappear into the crowd. "Oh no you don't. Just wait for the crowd to disperse some more."

"But Mom—"

"When Mary lost Jesus in the temple she apparently needed three days to find him. I'm not going to get stuck looking for you that long."

Cassandra, Tim and Robin laughed as the crowd, increased by the parishioners who only came near Holy Days, continued out. Robin and Oscar dueled and tickled one another with their Palm Sunday leaves to try and fill the time. Cassandra leaned against the wall, eyes on the exit, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Excuse me? Cassandra?"

She turned, facing the tired looking but ever spirited Monsignor Ryan. "Father Ryan, did you come for us?" Tim asked.

"Hello, Tim! I actually wanted a chance to talk to Cassandra briefly—"

"Father Ryan! Tell Robin to quit poking me in the ear with her stupid palm!"

The old monsignor laughed. "Robin, you shouldn't agitate your brother with that. And Oscar, you shouldn't call the palm stupid."

One at a time the two dropped their heads, one after another saying, "I'm sorry."

"Anyway, Tim, I wanted to know if I could borrow your sister for a moment."

"Of course. She rode with us though, so it'd be nice if it wasn't too long," Tim said. "Is everything alright?"

"It's fine, Tim. Cassandra, could you join me in my office?"

"Of course."

Cassandra had accompanied Monsignor Ryan to his office many times at that point. In almost all matters the two got along fabulously. In the early days of her faith, Cassandra had sought him many times, and always looked forward to seeing his since-passed miniature poodle, Snowball. In recent years, he had become slower and quieter, but the two had always valued the time they had together. The old priest halfway fell into his seat when he finally reached the opposite side of his desk, looking at Cassandra with a winded smile.

"We haven't talked in a while. How are you feeling these days?"

"Fine. Maybe good… better if not for a killer in my mentor's old costume."

"I remember hearing about that, it's troubling news indeed," Monsignor Ryan said. "… Hearing you say that does a little to put me at ease though. I take it he is not one of your associates, then?"

"No. There is no chance," Cassandra said. "I knew my mentor, and I know my family."

"Good. Good. I hated the thought this could have anything to do with you," Monsignor Ryan said.

The two briefly went quiet, long enough for Cassandra to ask, "Was that what you wanted me for?"

"No," Monsignor Ryan said with a sigh. "There was… there was something else I needed to tell you. I'm retiring at the end of this year, Cassandra."

Her reaction came much as he had halfheartedly anticipated. A look of surprise when her eyes went wide, a question of "What?" and a slow look downward in concern. "Well… if it is your time…"

"There is a reason I'm telling you before the rest of the congregation," Monsignor Ryan said. "I'm not happy to be saying it. But it's not going to do anyone any good if I just avoid the matter." Cassandra could feel her mouth start to go dry. "With a new priest overseeing the congregation, I'm sure you know there will undoubtedly be some new… expectations."

"… Father?"

"To my knowledge, you have saved my life twice. By all I know, you did it many times more than that. For that reason, along with many others, you have always been welcomed in this church, always entitled to reconciliation and always allowed to accept the Eucharist. Actions that, considering the way we both know you live, are against the teachings of the bishop."

At this comment Cassandra's mouth slid open, the tiniest trembles running through her body and a struggle to mask the pain becoming visible. "You always let me. I thought I was allowed."

"That isn't the point, Cassandra." Monsignor Ryan said. "I am the leader of worship here, I have always been a loyal servant of God. If I tell the bishop he need not concern himself with my clergy, he won't. But my whole point is that I don't know what my successor would think of any of this." When Cassandra said nothing, only held her stare, he quietly added, "I have tried so hard… ever since things started with you and that girl—"

'That girl?" Cassandra said, the first tiny tears slipping from her eyes. "How often have you said 'that girl', Father? You always call her, 'that girl', no matter the conversation. Her name is Sadie, Father, and she is my wife. She has been my wife for years."

"… I know she has."

"And just like you, I saved her life. Like Stephanie she is one of my closest, dearest friends. I didn't choose who I can love, Father. Jesus did that."

The monsignor was briefly quieted, rubbing at his forehead with one of his hands. "You don't know how badly I wish I could believe that, Cassandra."

"… Thank you for telling me. I hope you enjoy your retirement."

"Cassandra, wait! I wasn't finished talking."

"We aren't in a confessionary. I am not going to discuss what you call sins." Despite her usual literal way of thinking and speaking, the sarcasm was both sharp and cutting to the old priest.

In spite of more protests she returned to Tim, Stephanie and their children, silently nodding to Tim they were fine to leave. As they stepped outside and made their way towards the parking lot, Cassandra quietly told Robin, "Aunt Sadie has many reasons she doesn't come. One of the most important is she doesn't feel welcomed."


	14. Chapter 14

"I don't know how much any of you catch the news after fallouts like this, but I have it documented right here. Over two-hundred dead, over a thousand injured, over a million in projected damages to property. Don't know if any of you were aware, but that psychopath probably coordinated with some other thugs all over Gotham, because over a hundred and fifty banks were nearly wiped clean in the ensuing chaos. This may be one of the worst disasters we've ever encountered, and our scale was pretty insane already."

Gathered before Maggie Sawyer as she gave these reports ten years ago were five of the Batman Family's core six. All were dressed in costume, with the open laptop sitting next to Nightwing and displaying a green, polygonal face serving as Oracle's means of communication.

"You have to understand what I'm trying to tell you right now. Every one of you has done incredible things for this city. Its populace are deeply in debt to you and your mentor… but this last attack was just the last straw."

"You know full well we had nothing to do with it," Robin said. "Are you going to try and punish us for someone else's attack?"

"It wasn't just an attack, kid," Sawyer said. "We haven't had casualties and destruction like this since No Man's Land, and that was an act of nature. This was one psychopath distributing dangerous tech all up and down our streets. We can't have a disaster like this again."

"So what are you proposing then?" Nightwing asked.

"Well, between all of the people dead and all of the people that now see this as a permanent stain on your symbols, I think it's time you all hung up your capes."

Reactions strongly mixed. "And if we don't?" Robin asked.

"Then the Gotham City Police Department will exercise the legal reaction we have been ignoring for years," Sawyer said. "Vigilantism is a crime, every one of you knows it. For as long as it has been prudent to defend you, we have."

"We were never doing this because it was prudent for you," Red Robin said. "We've never taken orders from the police, Batman faced more than his share of corrupt cops and officials over the years."

"If we go from costumed massacres to corrupt cops, it'll be a definite improvement," Sawyer said. "I know every one of you hate it, I know some of you are thinking of fighting it. But we're past the days of Gordon and we're past the days of Batman. If you make the police your enemy, we will engage."

Silence overtook the room for a few minutes before Sawyer resumed, "I told you I hate this, and I do… And if it would be of any interest, we wanted to offer you a form of conciliation." Sawyer paused for replies, but none came. "We know your dedication to our city. We know you would do anything to protect it. We're considering putting together a task force for extreme situations. You'd work alongside the police, dress in our issued uniforms, report back to us, and help handle situations that get out of hand."

"You want us to be your lapdogs," Robin retorted.

"I have a concern about that," Batgirl said. "Supposing we'd say yes, it's not like you could just sign the signal anymore."

"You're right," Sawyer said. "I'd also need your identities. That information would be classified, no one outside the department would ever know. But if we're going to work together we just can't afford any more secrets."

"This is bull!" Robin said. "You can't make us do anything!"

"You all have three choices from here," Sawyer said. "Throw out those costumes, tell us who you are and keep fighting for your city. Throw out those costumes and go about your lives, pretending you never wore them. Or keep dressing up, and see how far it gets you. Get back to me in a week, and I better not see any of you in costume before that."

…

The six gathered in Tim and Stephanie's living room, as they often did when discussing matters that concerned them all at once. As was to be expected, tensions were high all around. "I'm not trying to be pesky about this, I just want it on the floor right now- I'm retiring," Stephanie said to no one's surprise. "We have a son now, and it's time I started acting like it. I made a promise to my mom I wouldn't be like my dad, making him wonder when or if I was coming home."

"… I don't especially like it, but I should probably do the same," Tim said.

"It's probably for the best on you guys' part," Dick said. "You have a family to look after now. I am seriously thinking about that task force Sawyer mentioned though, maybe it's time to just take it as a natural evolution. Like you said, I really don't like it, but it's at least something."

"I can help provide intel," Barbara said. "Help with any cyber-crime going on and keep tabs on the GCPD, make sure they're playing by their own rules and keep out the corrupt cops we were talking about."

"Fighting is so much of what I know," Cassandra said. "I want to be home with Sadie, I want to stop, but have been at it so long. I do not know if I know how to let go."

A few hushed remarks were exchanged as Damian looked over them all from an armchair in the corner, the scowl on his face growing deeper and deeper. Finally, exacerbated by their talk, he said, "This is the most pathetic conversation I've ever sat in on."

"You have something to say then?" Tim asked.

"I can't believe I'm even hearing all this. All of you worked for my father for years. My father who handled corrupted cops, costumed punks, magic, monsters, cultists and all other manner of undesirable for his entire adult life. He taught all of you to do the same, and here you are, discussing how you're going to abandon his legacy. What the hell is wrong with all of you?"

"Damian, Bruce is gone," Dick said. "He's gone and nothing out there is getting any easier—"

"So you just want to give up? Or let someone else do a bunch of the lifting for you? My father kept you from being forgotten about in some orphanage, Grayson. He gave you a chance to be something greater than yourself. And if he's dead, than it's our mission to carry on his work, no matter who tells us otherwise."

Tim was about to shout at him, but one of Stephanie's hands held his shoulder, as if ordering him to restrain himself. This gave Barbara enough time to say, "We all grieve in our own way, Damian."

"Grieve?" He said. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I was the one who wrote the notes Prometheus was reciting from. I know that you're in a lot of pain, and you really don't know how to deal with it."

"You're insane," Damian said. "I was raised by killers. I've killed people before myself. I just refuse to see all of my father's work undone."

"Are you sure that's it?" Barbara asked. "Because I think it might be something else you just won't talk about. Something no one ever taught you to talk about." Damian just stared, saying nothing. "I had a step-mother named Sarah, you know. She was killed by The Joker during that time after Gotham got hit by that earthquake. For years I thought I hated her because I couldn't stand the thought of someone other than my mom being with my dad. But she cared about him a lot, and she cared about me too. I know what it's like to have never called her 'mom', and I know for a fact you've never called Bruce 'dad'."

"I repeat, what the hell are you on about?"

"You miss your father, Damian. You miss him horribly. He was the first person in your life to treat you like an actual person. You've always struggled with who to be, and now that Bruce is gone, you're not sure how to be anything."

The room went dead silent as everyone contemplated her words. It was Cassandra who finally spoke when she said, "I remember the feeling."

"No you don't," Damian snapped. "My father came in and saved you from your legacy… all of your legacies!" Now he was starting to shout. "You're his recruits. I'm his son! Maybe you can just walk away from his life's work, but I can't. I thought we were all in this for life, but clearly this is all mine to handle. I don't give a damn, you can all do whatever you want."

"Barbara just bore her heart to you, you insufferable brat," Tim said. "There really is nothing inside you, is there?"

"Tim, calm down," Stephanie said. "Like Barbara said—"

"Yeah, I'm just really not so sure," Tim said. "What have you ever brought any of us besides a huge pain in the ass, Damian? Maybe you're a hell of a fighter, but even after you learn your father is dead, what are you? Just the same old, as always, quite literally, son of a bitch."

Everyone clenched as he made that statement. A fight was surely about to break out in the Drakes' living room, someone had to be ready to pull back the two of them.

But nothing came. Damian only looked down as he pushed up from his chair. "My mother was a bitch, Drake. And it's one more reason I can't leave my father's work undone. If everyone in Gotham is going to be gunning after me, I clearly have no place here anymore."

"You don't have to face this alone, Damian," Barbara said. "We've all lost so much. We can help you get through this."

"… No. No you can't."

After Bruce's death, Damian had been left in Alfred's care at Wayne Manor. Within a week of the discussion and claiming a chunk of his inheritance with Alfred's help, he disappeared. When asked about the matter, Alfred had simply said, "Master Bruce had much to sort out after the loss of his mother and father. I am too tired to chase Damian to and fro. I couldn't have stopped him, and hopefully he will be better when he returns to us."

The uniforms were either hidden or surrendered to the police. Tim and Stephanie resumed time at home with Oscar. Barbara, Dick and Cassandra offered occasional service to the Gotham Police. Damian returned to the city briefly for a few holidays a year, gathered uncomfortably with his adoptive family.

…

"Yeah, this is Damian. I don't check my voicemail, so don't bother. I'll call you back when I get the chance."

 _Beep_.

"Damian, it's Babs. I wanted to see if you were going to come home for Easter. Sarah, Dick and I are going to Tim and Stephanie's for dinner that day. I can hardly believe it, but the two of them are actually starting to act like brothers again. I really hope you can join us. I'd really like to believe we can all finally be a family again."


	15. Chapter 15

Stephanie was usually a deep sleeper, but recent events had made her anxious to the point of robbing her of her rest. She had called the number Barbara had given her, once to confirm her existence, the second to finalize plans. After some insisting and exchanges between her and Mrs. Miller, she had convinced her she was Jodie's biological mother, and after talks with Mr. Miller, had decided she'd leave for Greensburg to meet them a few days after Easter. She hadn't had a chance to talk to Jodie at all, but at least things were finally moving forward.

Tim was still fast asleep, which she was half resentful and half grateful for. Stephanie made her way to the bathroom down the hall, forgetting the one attached to her bedroom as usual. Washing her hands, sipping a glass of water, she heard a quiet voice ask, "Mom?"

Stephanie looked across the hallway to Robin's room, where she was sitting up in bed. "What are you doing up?" Stephanie asked.

"Thinking about stuff," Robin said. "Will you talk to me?"

"We've got church tomorrow, dolly," Stephanie said. "And the Easter Bunny is going to be here in just a few hours."

"Please? I'd sleep better if we did."

Stephanie sighed and stepped into her bedroom. Robin always slept with a lamp turned on. Stephanie could understand being afraid of the dark, but it was so bright she couldn't believe her daughter could possibly sleep with it on. She sat down next to her, running a hand over her long black hair. "Okay, what's up?"

"You said you had another kid somewhere," Robin said. "A daughter in Greentown, right?"

"Greensburg," Stephanie said, laughing a little. "The town's called Greensburg."

"You said you're going to see here soon, aren't you?"

"Yes. Her name is Jodie, and I'm going to see her next weekend."

"Is she nice?"

"I don't know, Robin. I've never met her. But I really hope she is."

Robin looked down, clutching a light blue stuffed rabbit from next to her pillow. "Are you going to leave and be her mom?"

"Oh, Robin, is that what was keeping you up?" Stephanie asked. She wrapped her arms tight around her and kissed her forehead. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Oscar said that too, but I wasn't sure."

"Jodie already has a mom and dad. I'm just going to visit her for a few days, and then I'll be right back home. And maybe if it goes well, you and Oscar can come with me some other time I go."

These words made Robin smile. "I get to meet my big sister?"

"As long as she likes me. And I really, really hope she likes me."

"Everyone likes you, Mom, don't worry about that," Robin said. "You said even though it took a long time, you got Grandpa Bruce to really like you."

Stephanie sighed, Robin's remark awakening a number of other thoughts creeping forward from the back of her head, her father's words from weeks ago in particular. "Grandpa Bruce was a good man, Robin. He loved us all very much. I'm sorry you never got to meet him."

"I hope he likes it in Heaven," Robin said.

Trying to force the last thoughts of that conversation with her father out of her head, Stephanie just said, "I'm sure he does."

…

"Cassie? Hey, Cassie, are you awake?"

"... Yes."

"Aw man, wide awake, by the sounds of it." Sadie rolled over to face her, laying one of her arms across her. "Are you okay?"

"I don't want to go to church tomorrow," Cassandra said. "I'm afraid of Father Ryan leaving, and I'm afraid to see him again."

"Well, I can't really blame you for that," Said said. "I'm sorry."

"... I wish you could understand."

"I'm not saying I completely do, Cassie, but I kind of do," Sadie said. "I sympathize at least. I don't want you to have to be afraid of going to church. Being Catholic makes you happy, I know that. I don't want you to lose that."

Cassandra slid in closer and laid her head across Sadie's arm. "Thank you. I don't know what I'd ever do without you."

"You wouldn't be here without me," Sadie said with a sigh. "I'm stuck on that one a lot."

"Don't say that."

"At least you like guys too," Sadie said. "Who was that guy you dated during that one break we took? Connor, right?"

"It doesn't matter," Cassandra said. "I liked him, but I love you."

"Is that about how you feel about church? You like being Catholic, but you love God?"

"No. I love being Catholic too. I just want peace."

"I know, Cassie, I know." Sadie laid a kiss on her forehead. "If God is real, he really, really loves you. And if he isn't, I'm still here, and I still love you." Sadie had said this many times over the years, and it was some of the best comfort Cassandra knew.

Others may have found Sadie's words offencive, but Cassandra never minded. She had spent her first sixteen years without her faith, and could never hold her wife's skepticism against her. "I love you too."

"No matter what happens, I'll still be here. Your brothers and your neices and nephew will all still be here."

"As I said, I could never get by without you."

"Then I'm glad you won't ever have to," Sadie snuggled in closer and shut her eyes. "Try and go back to sleep."

…

"I can't believe you talked me into sitting through that whole movie," Dick said.

"Did you like it?" Sarah asked.

"I did. I just don't get why they have to keep splitting these movies into two parts."

"A lot of that was from the book."

"Yeah, I know, but just because it works in the book doesn't mean it's not going to be boring when you're watching the flick." Dick turned to Barbara, leaned against him and asleep on the couch. "Mom fell asleep, somewhere in there."

"Mom's been really tired lately," Sarah said.

"Well, you know. Work keeps her busy."

"But she usually isn't working," Sarah said. "Neither of you work, really."

"We did a lot of working when we were younger, we've earned this," Dick said. "You should probably head to bed and I should too, if I want a chance at making it to church in the morning."

"Do you ever go more than twice a year?"

"It's twice more than I went back when I was travelling with the circus," Dick said. "As always, you can come along, if you want."

"Are Uncle Tim and Aunt Steph and Aunt Cassie and the others going to be there?"

"No, when I go I go to a different place from them."

"How come Mom doesn't go with you?"

"Because Mom's like Aunt Sadie. She believes differently from me."

Sarah shrugged. "I'll stay with Mom then. I'll see everyone at the Easter Egg hunt and dinner tomorrow anyway."

"Fine by me," Dick said, standing up and stretching, leaning over to shake Barbara from her sleep.

"I like having everyone together," Sarah said. "You and Uncle Tim are actually being funny together, finally."

"Well, guess things are finally working themselves out," Dick said.

"Is Uncle Damian coming tomorrow?"

"I left him a message," Barbara said with a yawn. "But he says he doesn't check those. So probably not, sorry kiddo."

"It's okay," Sarah said. "I'll see you guys in the morning. Love you."

"Love you too," the two said, one after another. After a few minutes alone with the flicker of Sarah's movie's DVD menu, Barbara said, "Any chance you could carry me to bed?"

He hadn't tried in a while, but Dick managed to get her right up easily. "Guess I've still got it," he said.

As he carried her towards their bedroom, she asked, "This still how you wanted it to turn out?"

"Babs, come on, don't do this again."

"I'd just imagine carrying your wife off to bed is a lot more romantic and sexy when it's just because, instead of the alternative to her rolling herself in."

"Your legs have never had anything to do with it," Dick said. "I've told you that a million times."

"I just don't imagine a lot of men choosing the woman who can't walk over the one who can fly."

Dick set Barbara down on her side of the bed before climbing in next to her on the other side. "I asked you to marry me after you'd already shot me down. I wake up next to you and make you coffee every morning. We have a daughter together. Don't ask me dumb questions, Barbara. You know how I feel."

As she began to shut her eyes again, Barbara softly said, "I swear, if I ever get my legs back, even for just a day, I am going to make up for all the dancing I've made you miss over the years."


	16. Suspension For now

Hello, to anyone who stuck around this long.

I wanted the chance to tell everyone, somewhat sadly, that I am suspending this story for the foreseeable future. At this point, the story I started telling and the story I now want to tell have been pulling further and further away from one another, and I feel like the journey from "start" to "want" has gotten too tangled up to satisfyingly fix without starting and cleaning up from the beginning.

With that said, I do feel like I still have a lot of strong ideas for this story I only just got the chance to scratch the surface of. So, while I'm putting it away for now, I do plan to revisit it in the future, complete with the full explanation of Tim and Dick's falling out, Stephanie's time with Jodie, who our Batman-killer really is and all that good stuff. For that reason, I'm not going to share any spoilers here.

If you've been enjoying my take on Batman, particularly Cassandra Cain, I'm preparing to celebrate the two-year anniversary of Angel of the Bat by beginning releases on its sequel, Angel of the Bat: Times of Heresy. You'll be able to read that as fast as tomorrow.

Thanks for the love and support throughout this story, and hopefully when I do return, I'll be back and better than ever.

Sincerely,

MJTR


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